Piscine Blomet

The pool opens at 7 AM; when I got there at 6:50 AM, there was already a long line. You pay €3.50 to get a ticket that you feed into a machine to let you into the facilities. Then there is sitting area, where you take off your shoes. The locker rooms are on the sides; you need a €1.00 coin to lock the lockers, but you get the coin back after. The pool is up one flight of stairs, so it's best to use the locker rooms there. There are separate (but fairly open-area) men's and women's shower rooms. You have to walk through a puddle of stagnant water to the pool. One lane is divided into two halves, I believe it is reserved for classes. Two lanes on the other side are combined to form one fat lane. That lane seems to be for people who like to hang around the walls and chat or just to float around. I barely saw any swimming there. The other two lanes were for lap swimming. It's circle swim, but everybody is on their own pace and doing their own thing. To pass a someone, you have to swim in the middle of the lane and hope you don't get into a collision to overtake that person. Tapping the toes do not work here. There were at least 15 people in one lane. Lots of people hanging by the wall. Lots of craziness. One side is too short for flip-turns and there are no T marks at the bottom to indicate the approximate distance to the wall.

I went there during the week mid-afternoon and only one and a half lanes were open for lap swimming. The full-length lane had at least eight swimmers and the half-length lane only had three. The dressing area was old but clean. The lockers were individual changing rooms but you had to shower in your bathing suit, as the lockers were in a mixed sex space.

I found this pool much better than Piscine Armand Massard. It was clean, the staff was friendly, and it wasn't that crowded (at 8 AM on a Sunday during Christmas season). I thought it was decently clean.

The psycho-ward of pools; unkept and crowded.

A good pool. The water is very clean, as are the changing areas. Some very good swimmers here as well. As with all pools in France, be prepared for a lot of people in the lanes. I've been there every day for a week and there's always room to swim.