Today's NYT carries a piece on what cities are said to have Europe's worst air pollution as per measurements - far exceeding recommended health levels.

any guesses - travel related in that asthmatics and folks with breathing problems may want to avoid, especially in sweltering summers.

Milan, Venice and a few others in northern Italy?

Belarus or Ukraine?

I was under the impression that the Netherlands (esp. Rotterdam) and Belgium were among Europe's most polluted areas, though whether that is based on air quality or other more general criteria I'm not sure...

Athens can be pretty grim - but there's some places in the old eastern bloc that must be worse.

Switzerland's national perfume is:
cow manure

This "iconic" odour can be experienced at various times throughout the year near any farming community.

The cities in Northern Italy.

Here is the article from the International Herald Tribune..perhaps the same article that the NYT has?
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/...pe/pollute.php

No shock..that is why I don't want to be in Italy during the hot summer weather.

I was under the impression that the foulest air was in Romanian industrial cities. Not too many tourists there, however.

The Netherlands suffers from air pollution due to the high density of motorways around the cities. Since the speed limits have been lowered things are getting better. The fact that the Ruhr area is a lot cleaner now also adds to cleaning up Holland's air, as we no longer have to breathe in Germany's industrial waste. It can get occasionally pretty grim, if the weather conditions a condusive to smog, but we haven't yet had a full on alert so that the roads are closed as they have had in Belgium, Italy and Greece.

Loveitaly probably has the same article since NYT now wholly owns IHT

and yes (and i'm just the messenger) it's Milan followed by Northern Italian cities including good ole Venice (not only the canals are terribly polluted)

Read the article and you'll see they separate air pollution into two types - one large particles like the heavy industry of the old East Bloc, which has been reduced since so many of those polluting behemoth factories have shut down - and the more serious smaller particles that particularly are bad for humans and especially kids. This type of pollution it says is largely caused by cars and transporation - and especially slow moving cars like in the grid-locked Milano area.

"northern Italy cities have the worst air pollution in Europe"

by mid-May Milan had already exceeded EU and WHO limits for particle pollution in air for 80 days (vs 64 at that time last year) - turino had 77, Bologna 51 and Venice 49

"while Europe's two other big polluters - Germany and Poland have reduced emissions since 1990 - Italy's have increased."

"Italy faces huge EU fines unless it corrects the problem"

Teen volunteers wore measuring monitors - during 24 hours one has an average exposure oif 127 micrograms per cu metre - WHO says safe target is 10!
At night in the kid's living room leaves reached 200 micros - his home is on a busy highway and they always leave the windows open

EU has proposed a target of PM 2.5 or 25 micro/cu mt - safe standard for WHO is 10, in the US 15. Many experts say the limits are too high.

8,220 deaths last year in Italy were attributed to smog

other top Euro polluted cities:

Milan's avg was 38 but readings ranged up to 150-200 at times
Athens 25 avg
Warsaw 34
Turino 41
Vienna 24
London and Paris 16

Meanwhile in Milan they are replacing 2,000 old buses and in what seems to me a very Italian way of combatting something that flops - the government gave grants for folks to buy better lower polluting cars and they did - car sales sprinted 9% tops in EU but they found out this only added to the number of cars and did not abate but excellerated the problem!

Los Angeles rivals Milan in avg pollution and like Milan and northern Italy blames it part on geography - mountains cause an inversion.