As Parisians enjoyed the warmest New Year's Eve since 1883, thousands of other revellers in northern France, Italy and the Netherlands plunged into icy waters for a fresh start to 2012 on Sunday.

A record 36,000 hardy swimmers took part in the traditional "New Year's Dip", in the Netherlands, said Cleome van den Berg, a spokesman for Unox, a soup brand which organises the event.

"It's true that it's crazy to do this, but once out of the water, it feels really good," Tjerk Drouen, 38, told AFP after his swim off Scheveningen, his cheeks reddened by the cold.

"Not a bad way to start the year, don't you think?"

About 400 swimmers dived into the North Sea at Dunkirk, in northern France, in a carnival-like atmosphere with many sporting zany costumes and blowing vuvuzelas, South African horns that emenate a flat note.

It was a far cry from their co-citizens in the French capital, who seized advantage of the balmiest weather in more than a century to flock to the streets despite a steady drizzle and grey skies.

"In Paris, the temperature did not go below 12.3 degrees last night, while the previous record for a New Year's Eve dates from 1883," Meteo France forecaster Dominique Raspaud told AFP.

Temperatures in Paris remained above normal on Sunday, hitting 14.3 degrees Celsius (57.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, against an average January temperature of 7.0 degrees Celsius (45 degrees Fahrenheit).

The mild weather came after France in 2011 saw its hottest year since the start of the 20th century, with average national temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the norm.

In Rome, six plucky men dived into the gelid waters of the Tiber river, observing a decades-old New Year's Day tradition as around 400 spectators cheered them on.

Lifeguard Maurizio Giuseppe Palmulli dived off of the Cavour Bridge for his 24th year in a row. The tattooed grandfather with long white hair took the plunge just days after diving off the Pont Neuf in Paris into the Seine river.

The Roman tradition began in 1946 when a Belgian expatriate, Rick De Sonay, made a habit of diving off the bridge each New Year's Eve, earning the nickname "Mr. OK" from the reassurances he gave anxious onlookers after each dive.

In the Calabria region in southern Italy, hundreds of people took advantage of the sunshine and blue skies to observe the 40-year-old New Year's Day tradition of going for a swim in the sea to welcome in the new year.

burs-ach/gk