Lake baths and river swims: a Zurich summer in the water

In summer Zurich goes swimming. The lake and the Limmat are clean enough to swim in the middle of the city, and the city keeps a string of baths along them: wooden bathhouses of the 19th century, lidos with diving boards and sand, and river channels where you float with the current. A summer day in the water, with the places in our guide.

On a hot day in Zurich the offices empty towards the water. Generations of Zurchers have swum their way through summer, from wooden bathhouses on stilts to river channels a few minutes from the Main Station. Pack a towel with your guidebook and you will see the city as it sees itself in summer.

The wooden lake baths

Start with the oldest. The Seebad Utoquai, at Utoquai 50, was built in 1890 by William Henri Marti as a Moorish-style box bath; its domed towers came down in 1942, but the wooden decks remain. Swim from the diving boards out to the rafts about 30 metres from the shore, then warm up in the sauna.

Across the water, the Seebad Enge floats at the end of a 30-metre walkway at Mythenquai 9. Robert Landolt built it in 1959–60, with 44-metre lanes, a women’s pool and a mixed pool; you can hire a paddleboard, and outside the swimming season its sauna keeps going.

Swimming in the Limmat

Where the lake flows into the river, the Frauenbad at Stadthausquai is still for women only by day. The city’s first public bathing house for women was built by the Bauschänzli in 1837 and renovated in Art Nouveau style, with a cupola and four turrets, in 1888; its two pools face the Grossmünster and the Wasserkirche.

Downstream, the Flussbad Oberer Letten is where the city swims with the current: a 400-metre channel, a 2-metre diving platform and sun terraces with book boxes, in concrete baths built in 1952 by the architect Elsa Burckhardt-Blum. Further out, on the Werdinsel in Höngg, the Flussbad Au-Höngg sits between the Limmat and a canal for confident swimmers, and entry costs nothing.

The name is meant literally: shoes stay at the entrance.

Beaches and lidos

For sand, go to the Strandbad Mythenquai, opened in 1922, with a 250-metre beach, diving platforms at 1, 3 and 5 metres, barbecue sites and a Hiltl restaurant. Families head for the Strandbad Tiefenbrunnen on the east shore, built in 1954, with a paddling pool and a 62-metre slide; when the foehn clears the sky, the tea-house terrace looks to the Alps. Both hire out paddleboards from automatic depots.

After the swim

Stay by the water when the sun goes down. On three evenings a week the Frauenbad becomes the Barfussbar, open to everyone; the name is meant literally: shoes stay at the entrance, and on Sundays there is barefoot dancing. Next door, from April to September, the Bauschänzli beer garden spreads under chestnut trees on a bastion of around 1660, with the Old Town, the lake and the Alps all in view.

Our advice: swim in the morning, when the baths are quiet; carry a waterproof bag if you plan to float the Limmat, read the rules posted at each bath, and keep the river channels for days when you are a confident swimmer. End with a drink at the Barfussbar or on the Bauschänzli.