Zelená žaba

Zelená žaba (Green Frog) is an open-air bath on the wooded southern slope of the Teplická vrchovina above the spa town of Trenčianske Teplice in western Slovakia. It was designed in the 1930s by the Brno architect Bohuslav Fuchs, whose wider urban scheme for the town aimed to extend the spa into new sunny positions on the terrace of the southern slope; only this bath was built from that scheme. Slovak Wikipedia dates the design to 1935-1937 and construction to between 11 May 1936 and 10 July 1937, describes the complex as a seasonal thermal open-air bath, and treats it as the peak of organic functionalism in Slovakia — the architect himself counted it among his two favourite works. The original layout comprised a four-storey main building for catering and services with a curving two-storey wing of changing cabins, an open swimming pool of 33.3 by 12 m, a separate bowling building (demolished before 1975) and a circular children's pool with its own showers and playgrounds. The site is a listed monument and the building's quality of execution is such that in over seventy years it required only minimal intervention.

The bath was reconstructed and modernised between October 2014 and December 2015 under a project run by Kúpele Zelená Žaba s.r.o. with a public contribution of EUR 1,484,435, aimed at reviving visitor numbers. Today the operator lists a main 33-metre stainless-steel pool with wellness and amusement features — a water geyser, massage benches, a wild river and a wave section — a children's pool, a VIP zone with its own pool and whirlpool available for a supplement, sun terraces with loungers, a multi-purpose sports ground, tennis courts, a playground, a bowling alley, a restaurant with terrace and several buffets. Published water temperatures are 28 °C in the large pool, 34 °C in the whirlpools and 32 °C in the children's pool.

A separate sauna world, described by the operator as unique in central Europe in its design, is built as a group of seven tubes oriented towards a large central whirlpool. It holds a Finnish sauna, a herbal sauna, a steam sauna and an infrared sauna, together with a whirlpool, a cooling pool, rest rooms and changing rooms.

The grounds are open all year, but the seasons differ sharply: in the winter season the operator states that visitors can use the restaurant and the outdoor sauna world, the open-air pools being a summer offer. Tickets can be reserved online, including for the VIP zone, and entry to the grounds is limited to bath visitors. Note that the operator's own pages nowhere describe the water as thermal or mineral — the thermal designation for this bath comes from Wikipedia and from the town's spa tradition, not from the current operator.