EUROPE
/
GERMANY
/
HAMBURG
/
Places to Stay

Bodies of Water: The 10 Most Beautiful Public Pools From Around the World

Vienna's Amalienbad was originally designed to uplift the lives of ordinary people by providing civilised bathing and washing facilities
Vienna's Amalienbad was originally designed to uplift the lives of ordinary people by providing civilised bathing and washing facilities | © Viennaslide / Alamy Stock Photo
Photo of Catherine Slessor
Catherine Slessor
11 June 2020

From Europe to South America, we’ve rounded up the best public pools across the globe to get your togs on and go for a splash in.

Icebergs Club

Swimming Pool
Map View
The Bondi Icebergs, public pools
© Harry Vincent / Culture Trip
Sluiced and caressed by the roiling surf, Bondi Baths is a 50m-long (164ft) ocean pool, part of the Bondi Icebergs Club, established in 1929 as a winter swimming club for hardy local lifeguards. Now, however, anyone can swim here. A very Australian combination of sportif seriousness – the pool is huge and packed with dogged lane-swimmers – and the awesome forces of nature, as the sea hammers with dramatic and often perilous intensity around its edges. The original club house was just a simple tin shack, now long gone and replaced by a terraced building commanding spectacular ocean vistas.

Der Spiegel Publishing House

Swimming Pool
Map View

Famed for his exuberantly psychedelic palette, curvaceous forms and penchant for experimentation, Danish architect and designer Verner Panton created this insanely kaleidoscopic pool for employees in the basement of the Der Spiegel’s Hamburg publishing house in 1969. The rest of the office is a similarly glorious exercise in retina-searing hues. The last gasp of the ’60s is orgasmically expressed in a kind of aqua disco, with nothing left to the imagination. Possibly the only thing missing is a glitter ball. Sadly, the pool was destroyed in a fire, but Panton’s other riotous interiors still endure, now lovingly preserved as national treasures.

Tinside Lido

Swimming Pool
Map View
Tinside Lido in Plymouth, Devon
© Mark Passmore / Alamy Stock Photo
The English coastline is dotted with Art Deco lidos, delectable globs of ice-cream architecture dedicated to the peripatetic pleasures of summer. Opened in 1935, Plymouth’s Tinside Lido is a scorcher, embedded on a promontory overlooking the Plymouth Sound and featuring a colossal, semi-circular pool. Enjoyed by successive generations of holidaymakers, its streamlined vanilla contours perfectly chime with its role as a place of carefree, seaside delight. Yet, like many British lidos, it has experienced neglect and darker times, even closing in 1992. After a period in the wilderness, when its future was uncertain, it was saved and refurbished, triumphantly reopening in 2005.

Leça Da Palmeira Pools

Swimming Pool
Map View
People sunbathing at the Leça Da Palmeira Pools in the north of the city of Matosinhos, Portugal
© Serrat / Alamy Stock Photo
Cradled within a landscape of rock pools, this swimming complex on the Atlantic coast near Porto elegantly integrates nature and artifice. Designed by renowned Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza, it was one of his earliest projects dating from the mid 1960s, and shows a characteristically deft touch, framing and defining two existing tidal pools, while also adding changing rooms, showers and walkways. The relationship between the concrete elements that mark routes down to the pools and the stark geology of the rock-encrusted terrain is beautifully considered, set against a backdrop of rolling Atlantic surf and infinite sea views.

SESC 24 de Maio

Building, Library, Swimming Pool, Theater
Map View
Perched 14 storeys up on the roof of a former office building, now artfully cannibalised into a community centre, the pool at SESC 24 de Maio is a luscious oasis set against the frenetic blare of the São Paulo skyline. Rooftop pools tend to be the jealously guarded preserve of luxury hotels or private clubs, but this is a genuine public amenity, filled with locals enjoying the views of the city and each other. Designed by the great Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, it forms part of the building’s programme of sports, cultural and health facilities intended to be freely accessible to all.

Széchenyi Baths

Spa, Swimming Pool, Health Spa
Map View
Szechenyi Baths in Budapest
© Eric Nathan / Alamy Stock Photo
Book Now
Budapest is blessed with an abundance of natural hot springs, and its famous Széchenyi Baths, a yellow Neo-Baroque wedding-cake fantasy dating from 1913, has the distinction of being Europe’s largest thermal baths. Replenished from an artesian well 1,000m (328ft) underground, a bewildering labyrinth of 15 indoor and 3 outdoor pools is perpetually rammed with pleasure seekers, swimming, chilling, cavorting and playing aqua chess. A healthful array of saunas, steam rooms and therapeutic treatments is also available. The baths are open on both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, the perfect remedy for stubborn festive hangovers.

Why Book With Culture Trip?

  • Free cancellation

    In these uncertain times, cancel or change for free on select properties.

  • Price-match guarantee

    Find a better price on your booking and we’ll match it. Simple.

  • Unbiased & trustworthy

    Book from recommendations handpicked by travel experts.

    • Stadtbad Neukölln

    Swimming Pool
    Map View
    Opened just before World War I, this immense and luxurious bathing complex could cater to 10,000 Berliners daily in separate men’s and women’s pools. Don’t be deterred by the stern Prussian exterior – a banquet of sensual delights lies within. Copiously equipped with saunas and spas, its real architectural glory lies in two gorgeous, classically inspired pools, intended to recreate the experience of swimming in an antique thermal baths. The 25m-long (82ft) men’s pool is adorned with travertine columns and cherub-mounted walrus fountains, while the 19m-long (62ft) women’s pool is embellished with florid mosaics. This is an historic and wonderfully sybaritic melange of space, light and water.

    Amalienbad

    Swimming Pool
    Map View
    Amalienbad
    © Hackenberg-Photo-Cologne / Alamy Stock Photo
    A legacy of 1920s Red Vienna, the Amalienbad was originally designed to uplift the lives of ordinary people by providing civilised bathing and washing facilities in an impoverished part of the city, and was a key building in the social and political scheme of the city’s left-wing administration. Described at the time of its opening in 1926 as “the largest and most modern bathing establishment in Central Europe”, its pool boasted a movable glass roof that could be opened in just three minutes. Based on the design of a Roman thermal baths, it also has an array of gorgeously tiled spas and saunas, infusing public hygiene with experiential sensuousness.

    Piscine Suzanne Berlioux

    Swimming Pool
    Map View

    Named after a famous coach of the French women’s swimming team, this 50m-long (164ft) pool is in a cavernous concrete grotto in Les Halles, the subterranean shopping centre and transport interchange in the heart of Paris. For comparison, imagine the improbable scenario of an Olympic-scale pool buried deep underneath London’s Oxford Circus. Designed by French architect Paul Chemetov in 1985, who had a thing about megastructures, the concrete pool cave is surprisingly light and airy, illuminated by daylight reflected into its depths by a cunningly designed winter garden. This is a hidden Parisian gem well worth seeking out.

    Werksschwimmbad

    Swimming Pool
    Map View
    The 'Werksschwimmbad' swimming pool at Zeche Zollverein in Essen, western Germany
    © INA FASSBENDER / AFP via Getty Images
    Bodged together from a couple of disused shipping containers, this free, public summer pool in the ruins of the Zollverein colliery near Essen was conceived in 2001 by artists Dirk Paschke and Daniel Milohnic. It forms part of the ambitious repurposing of the former mining complex, the largest in the world and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as a vast park for leisure and recreation. Framed against a backdrop of decaying coke ovens, the Werksschwimmbad is decidedly bijoux at only 12m (39ft) long, but what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in its extraordinary setting, a glorious symphony of post-industrial ruin porn.
    These recommendations were updated on June 11, 2020 to keep your travel plans fresh.
    Give us feedback

    Cookies Policy

    We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK"