Westbad

das Stadtwerk.Westbad is the west-side municipal bath of Regensburg, operated by the city utility alongside the Wöhrdbad and the Sportpark Ost pool. It works as a year-round indoor bath with a full outdoor season attached to it from May to September. The indoor core is a 50-metre sport pool at 26 degrees with eight lanes and international competition certification, where a modern overflow system keeps the surface unusually still; its lane time is shared with schools and clubs according to an occupancy plan the operator publishes for download. Beside it sit a wave pool, a warm indoor basin at 34 degrees entered by a broad staircase and fitted with a bubble massage at the rim, and a warm open-air basin reached directly from the swimming hall, or in summer by an outside stair. An indoor diving facility completes the hall, though at present only the one-metre boards and the three-metre platform are in service, and diving runs in fixed half-hour slots on weekends and holidays between October and April.

Two slides share an area of their own. The West-Slide is a 75-metre tube with numerous curves and effects, pitched at families; the West-Racer is a 95-metre speed slide of two parallel tubes with integrated timing, so two riders can race each other against the clock. Both are open to children from six years of age. A 44 square metre indoor paddling pool with a water pump and water channel, screened from the rest of the hall by glass partitions and ringed by stone steps for parents, normally rounds out the indoor offer, but it is closed for rebuilding at the time of writing. Two table-tennis tables are available all year, with bats from the rental shop.

From May to September the outdoor half opens. It holds an adventure pool with a water swing, a grotto, a small island and a wide slide; a large outdoor children's pool with an elephant slide; a 25-metre outdoor sport pool; and a diving tower rising to ten metres, with one, three, five and 7.5-metre stages beneath it and five fixed half-hour diving slots a day. A seven-metre water climbing wall with three graded routes stands over the diving basin, open daily outside the diving slots. Beach volleyball, sun terraces, broad lawns, an adventure playground built as a ship, a Kneipp basin and an arm bath fill out the grounds. The sauna is a separately ticketed operation on 12,000 square metres, with a 5,000 square metre garden looking towards the Winzerer Höhen, where infusion ceremonies run on the hour in the Swiss-pine, Finnish and Kelo cabins.