The Mediterranean is synonymous with sunshine, but intensifying heatwaves are spoiling holidays and even claiming lives. Here's how you can still enjoy its stunning destinations – safely. Georgia Fowkes considered herself a seasoned traveller. As an advisor for Altezza Travel, she was used to navigating sweltering environments, from East Africa to Southern California. But surrounded by whitewashed buildings and ancient ruins in Greece while dripping with sweat, she was miserable. "A European heatwave hits differently," she said. "The kind [of heat] that cancels your plans, fries your brain and makes you rethink why you booked a rooftop hotel in July." In recent years, many of the Mediterranean's iconically sunny destinations like Italy, Greece, France and Spain have become increasingly besieged by devastating heatwaves, leading unsuspecting tourists to come up with creative solutions to keep cool. "Our hotel had AC technically, but it groaned like a dying fan and gave up by mid-afternoon," said Fowkes. "The tap water came out warm. There were no blackout curtains. I tried sleeping with a wet towel on my chest and a bottle of frozen water under my knees and still woke up dizzy. At one point, I moved my pillow to the stairwell and lay on the tiles like a Victorian fainting lady because that was the only surface remotely cool." Travellers wandering through the Mediterranean's winding alleyways and descending on its turquoise seas this summer have found little reprieve; several scorching heatwaves have already brought record-busting temperatures, leading to a spike in heat-related health problems and even deaths across Europe. "The line of the tropics has literally moved," explained Nick Cavanaugh, a climate scientist and founder of Sensible Weather, a climate risk technology company. "There are all these circulation patterns around the world and the ones that surround the tropics are actually growing." More extreme temperatures are predicted across southern Europe this weekend, just as the European holiday season comes to its peak.