Mediterranean: Why does everyone only go there in summer?

Ah, the most wonderful time of the year! For many people, it is still their summer vacation, somewhere where there is sun and warmth, where friendly waiters bring you drinks to the edge of the pool. And you don’t have to pay, because that was already taken care of with the all-inclusive booking. The desire to travel has broken out again, not only among Germans, many holiday countries are reporting booking records for the summer of 2024, after having already recorded a “record year” in 2023. Italy, for example, with an impressive 134 million tourists. It is similar in Spain, and Turkey and Greece are also facing a major rush.

And nothing can deter us holiday-hungry people! The love for the hot countries is so great that even rejection by our loved ones cannot harm it. In the Canary Islands, Greece and Mallorca, people are protesting against the masses of holidaymakers, with slogans like “Tourists go home” and “Our islands are not for sale”. And you can’t blame the people there, as Airbnb and the like are making housing and food almost unaffordable for locals. And then German party tourists at Ballermann are causing such a riot that the police recently had to shoot them (from blank cartridges) and chase them off Schinkenstraße.

But such attempts to scare people away don’t seem to be working. Just like the increasingly brutal temperatures that were already prevailing in Greece and Turkey at the beginning of June: up to 45 degrees! How will it be in summer? You can only really bear that in air-conditioned rooms, because even the sea gets so warm that it’s no longer good for cooling down. Who can relax there? Apparently many people. Because instead of cancellations, there are even more bookings.

In southern Italy, they are now trying out the fireworm. The bristleworm, which can be up to 30 centimeters long, has spread rapidly in the Mediterranean due to the increasing heat. If you step on it, its bristles release a poisonous secretion that causes a severe burning pain for several days. But its deterrent effect is also likely to be ineffective. There seems to be no cure for the inner urge to spend the summer in southern Europe.

Even Americans are booking like crazy, even though CNN recently warned them about overpriced hotels, crowds of tourists and protests from locals. The story was titled “Good luck in Europe this summer!”