Kaifu-Bad

The Kaifubad at Hohe Weide 15 in Hamburg-Eimsbuettel is run by the municipal operator Baederland and is, on its own account, the oldest bath in the city at more than 120 years. Its summer half is the open-air bath: a 50-metre pool for lengths, a dedicated diving basin under boards at one, three and five metres and a ten-metre tower — one of very few left in Hamburg — plus a paddling pool with play equipment and a water playground for small children. A large lawn with sun and shade, a boules court and a kiosk selling ice cream and chips fill the rest of the grounds. A separate outdoor basin stays open through the winter and is heated to 25 C outside the summer season, and the admission ticket for the open-air bath also covers the indoor hall, where a single multi-purpose pool serves both lap swimmers and casual bathers alongside a teaching pool.

Sweating is organised over two floors and 600 square metres. The sauna landscape lists a 95 C dry sauna, a 90 C sauna, a 60 C colour-light sauna and a steam bath, with cold-water treatments, a foot-warming basin, a quiet room, a sleeping room and a media room between sessions; Tuesday is reserved as a women's sauna day, and the infusion schedule is published as a downloadable plan. A day ticket for the sauna costs 23.60 euros against 7.90 euros for the pool alone.

The third part of the building is the Kaifusole, restored in 2016. Its centrepiece is a floating basin of 17 by 11 metres whose water carries six per cent salt and is held at 32 C, warm and dense enough to keep a bather on the surface while sound and light play over the hall; the operator states that the salt is rock salt from the Natursole Suelbeck, raised there from a depth of 400 metres, rather than water from a spring under the building. Around it are a Himalayan salt-stone sauna at 60 to 65 C, a steam bath at 45 C, a cold plunge at 12 to 15 C, a graduation tower that lets brine evaporate into the air, a fireplace room, a 265-square-metre roof terrace and a bar. Brine admission costs 28 euros a day including the pool, or 34 euros with the sauna.