Piscine Suzanne-Berlioux (Les Halles)

This is a decent pool with a "rapide" lane allowing all four strokes. The shallow end is only 0.8m deep and the water is cold. Demonstrably slower swimmers will push off in front of you.

The pool is somewhat difficult to find, as it's downstairs. It's close to the round Bourse de Commerce. Use the Pont Neuf Sortie from the Les Halles Metro stop.

This Olympic-size pool is located in the lowest level of the shopping center at Les Halles (Metro: Châtelet-Les Halles). Signs for the pool (piscine) are clearly marked throughout the shopping center. When in doubt, keep going downstairs.

Lockers are user friendly. After choosing a locker, enter its number on a nearby computer screen, then enter a 4-digit password of your choosing. To open your locker, enter its number and password. The locker door will automatically open. Caps are required as well as tight-fitting suits. Showers are required with suits remaining on. There are both warm (chaud) and cold (froid) shower options.

The pool has a grouping of three combined lanes and four single lanes, which have signs indicating types of strokes, but they were ignored. The far lane is reserved for lessons. The temperature is 27ºC (80.6ºF). I tended to swim in the early afternoon so that it was not unbearably crowded. I was told it becomes crowded after 4:00 PM.

Rating: 7 on a scale of 10.
Crowded from opening to closing; the lowest number of swimmers in a lane is seven or eight, just after opening; the most 15. All stokes and speeds seem possible in any lane; but it's a long course swim in the middle of Paris. Open long hours, including some mornings at 7 AM for an hour and 15 minutes - unfortunately not all mornings. Open very late some nights, too. Hours change according to school vacation

Yep, it's crowded. Very. But, at the same time, it's a pretty awesome pool. I arrived at opening time on a Wednesday morning (11:30 AM) and stood in line with about 15 people before the doors opened. Despite being an English speaker with limited French skills, I still managed to make my way through the locker room (the lockers are dual language) into the pool quickly enough to get in 500m before the lanes exceeded their comfortable capacity. I spent another 45 minutes or so dodging other swimmers, turning around mid-lane and generally not being able to get my heart rate going, but it really didn't matter - the experience was fun. I got a real kick out of the female locker room attendants, whose presence still made me feel self-conscious, even though the changing stalls were perfectly private. I also found the spinning class taking place in the pool - yes ladies and gentlemen, IN THE POOL, an absolutely hilarious concept; somehow these avid bikers found the gumption to lift 30-or-so stationary bikes into the water and pedal away! Realistically, if one wants to do fast sets and get in a collegiate-level workout, this ain't the place, but if you want to string together some yardage and get a good taste of a swimmer's life in the Paris metro, this is a great spot to take a dip.

At 6 PM on Saturday it was beyond crowded: Hand-to-foot in every lane.

Tends to be crowded, but the best I've found for real lap swimming.

Shallow at one end and not good for flip turns.

One lane for paddles, one for breaststroke, one for crawl and backstroke - but too crowded for backstroke when I was there. VERY crowded at the start of the session, but the crowd diminished later in the morning.

Paris has about 30 pools, very few suitable for serious lap swimming - this is one.