Ishara

The Ishara is the leisure and sauna bath of the Bielefelder Bäder, the bathing company of the Stadtwerke Bielefeld group, and stands at Europaplatz in the city centre. The operator's own chronology of Bielefeld bathing dates its opening to 2000 and describes it as a sport, fun and sauna bath. It is laid out as three connected but separately ticketed areas: the family Badewelt, the Sportlandschaft for lane swimming, schools and clubs, and the Saunawelt, with a massage partner and gastronomy attached. Although the operator is municipal, the house is a full themed Badewelt with a paid sauna world rather than a lane pool, and it is treated here as in scope on those facilities.

The Badewelt is aimed at families with children up to teenage age. Its published inventory is a warm-water pool at 34 °C, a current channel with a wave section, a relaxation pool at 32.5 °C, a 90-metre Black Hole slide, cascade showers, massage jets and bubble loungers, a play ship and a tunnel slide for small children, and a snack area. Warmth on the bathing side comes from a steam bath, a textile sauna and a tecaldarium held at about 45 °C room temperature. The operator states that the Badewelt and the Sportlandschaft are physically separate, connected by a passage, and that the sports area has its own changing and sanitary rooms for schools and clubs. Children from the age of ten may visit unaccompanied; younger children need a supervisor of at least sixteen.

The Saunawelt is described by the operator as the largest and most varied sauna facility of the Bielefeld baths, and is used textile-free. Indoors it holds the Vitu dry sauna at 75 to 80 °C, the Ventus infusion sauna at 85 °C, the Valeo relaxation sauna at 70 to 75 °C, a cave room at 60 to 65 °C and a steam bath at 42 to 45 °C, with a salt scrub offered before the steam. Outdoors are the large Teuto infusion sauna seating about 65 people with music, light and mist effects, the Salus infusion sauna at 95 °C on the roof terrace and a banja sauna reaching 100 °C, where birch infusions and whisk rituals can be booked. Cooling is by an outdoor plunge pool at 12.2 °C, an indoor cold pool at 15 °C and an outdoor warm pool at 31.2 °C, and there are a roof terrace, a garden and a rest house with heated loungers. Mondays are women-only, and the Valeo sauna is reserved for female guests from 16:00 on Tuesday to Friday.

The Badewelt opens daily from 10:00 to 20:00; the Saunawelt runs from 10:00 to 22:00 and until 23:00 on Friday and Saturday, with last admission an hour before closing. A day ticket for the Badewelt costs 13.00 euro on weekdays and 15.00 euro at weekends and on public holidays, while a Saunawelt day ticket, which includes the bath, costs 30.00 to 31.00 euro.