baff-bad

The baff is the indoor leisure pool of the Sportzentrum Westend in Eberswalde, run by the municipal utility Technische Werke Eberswalde. Its swimming hall is built around a five-lane, 25-metre sports pool kept at 28 °C, which clubs and schools also use under a booking plan the operator publishes. Alongside it lie a non-swimmer pool 0.90 to 1.25 m deep with a counter-current unit, and a family pool of the same warmth fitted with four massage jets, a water spout and a current channel with three speed settings. Both are entered by disabled-friendly steps as well as ladders, so that non-swimmers can get into the water gradually.

Families with small children have a separate 34 °C paddling pool no deeper than 0.30 m, with a mushroom fountain, air jets and a small water jet, and the baby-changing room a few steps away. Two heated basins of roughly 2 by 3 m sit in an artificial rock landscape and are operated alternately, aimed at muscles tired from swimming. The one open-air basin is deliberately unheated, sits at around 18 °C, and is shut for the autumn and winter months, leaving the adjoining lawn for summer sunbathing. The house slide is a black-hole tube with changing light accents ending in a 50 cm run-out pool.

The sauna floor is compact but varied: a Finnish sauna at 90 °C, a steam sauna at 50 °C and an infrared cabin at 60 °C indoors, plus a log-built sauna on the roof terrace, where hand infusions are poured on the even hour and automatic ones on the odd. The roof garden also holds two stone basins for a foot-sole massage, with grasses and ornamental planting around them; downstairs there is a plunge pool, a multi-function cascade shower and rest rooms. Sauna hours are seasonal, and in high summer the sauna closes altogether.