Bathed naked beside Poles in European city (6)
I believe the answer is:
athens
'european city' is the definition.
(capital of Greece)
'bathed naked beside poles' is the wordplay.
'naked' says to take the centre (outside letters removed so centre is unclothed).
'beside' says to put letters next to each other (I've seen this in other clues).
'poles' becomes 'NS' (north and south poles).
The centre of 'bathed' is 'athe'.
'athe'+'ns'='ATHENS'
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for athens that I've seen before include "foreign city" , "City in which 13 Across founded school" , "European capital city" , "Hasten to the Hellenic city" , "Two thousand and four Olympics city" .)