Wananas

Wananas is the sport and leisure bath of Herne in the Ruhr district, run by the municipal Herner Badergesellschaft. German Wikipedia records that it opened in December 2016 after about two years of construction, at a cost of 15 million euro, replacing the earlier Wananas combined bath which burned down to its foundation walls in November 2011; bathing began on 27 December 2016. The name plays on the Wanne-Eickel district in which it stands. Its distinguishing architectural feature is a glass facade up to eight metres high wrapping three sides of the building. The operator gives the total site as over 5,000 square metres.

Seven pools are stated. The leisure pool covers 380 square metres and holds a current channel, a grotto and a climbing wall, with two lane-guided swimming channels along one edge for uninterrupted circuits, bubble loungers and massage jets; water there is held at 30 C. Two children's paddling pools sit beside it, a 18-square-metre mini pool 25 centimetres deep and a 25-square-metre toddler pool 45 centimetres deep, both at 32 C. The sports hall holds a 25-metre competition pool of 312 square metres with five lanes, starting blocks, one-metre and three-metre boards and a depth of 1.80 to 3.80 metres at 27 C; the adjoining teaching pool, 16.8 by 10 metres and 0.65 to 1.25 metres deep, is kept at a constant 28.5 C, and a separate 8 by 8 metre course pool has a movable floor. An outdoor pool of 8 by 10 metres with five bubble loungers and a cascade shower runs at 28 C.

There is one slide of note: a 65-metre tube slide reached from a gallery above the leisure pool, plus a wide slide in the leisure pool itself down which a family can glide together. A free low-temperature textile sauna, meant to be used in swimwear and glazed towards the pool hall, runs at 50 to 55 C inside the bathing area. The separate paid sauna world holds a classic Finnish sauna at 85 to 95 C and a Finnish salt sauna at 60 to 75 C, with a Himalayan salt wall and colour lighting, alongside a rest room with a panorama window, a sauna lounge and a screened, south-west-facing sauna garden that may be used without clothing. Monday from 14:00 is reserved for women.

The water is plain heated tap water. Nothing on the operator's site describes it as thermal, mineral or brine, and Herne has no spa status; the only salt in the building is the decorative rock salt lining the salt sauna. Leisure bath and sauna open Monday from 14:00 to 20:00 and Tuesday to Sunday from 08:00 to 20:00, with public holidays following the Tuesday-to-Sunday pattern; the sports hall opens Saturday 08:00 to 16:45 and Sunday 08:00 to 20:00 and is otherwise reserved for schools and clubs during quiet daytime hours, and early swimming runs Tuesday to Sunday from 06:00 to 08:00. Three hours in the water costs 12 euro for adults and 9 euro for children, with a sauna surcharge of 8 and 6 euro.