Schwimmhalle Fischerinsel

All five lanes at this clean and nice facility were available for laps during my early Tuesday morning visit (6: 30 to 8 AM). On average, there were four to five swimmers of mixed level per lane. I enjoyed swimming here.

I enjoyed an early morning swim here in the fall of 2022. Five lanes were set up for lap swimming, with maybe 2-4 of us in my lane at any given time. Folks seemed to sort themselves out reasonably well in terms of speed.

You pay at the front desk and are given a disposable card with a QR code to enter and exit the facility. Various swim gear is also sold at the front desk. Remember to remove your shoes before entering the locker room area!

The pool is advertised as open between 6:30 and 7:45 certain mornings, but the lifeguards got everyone out of the pool around 7:30 —so keep in mind that the open hours include your shower time.

In my experience, this pool is always very crowded. It's not very big - five lanes, but there are usually only three lanes with lane dividers and the other two are connected into an "open swim" section. Of the three lap lanes, two are usually used by schools and the remaining lane is designated "Swim Superhighway" (not kidding!). This lane tends to be Olympics-level swimming - quite aggressive and ruthless. So the so-called open swim section tends to have swimmers of all levels and speeds: from super slow floaters to quite fast lap swimmers (the spillover from the superhighway lane). I swim here most times when I'm in Berlin because it's the only pool I can get to based on where I usually stay and work in Berlin - but I find it pretty stressful swimming here. You spend a lot of time negotiating the traffic, doing lots of zigzagging and slaloming... If you are able to get around Berlin more, the 50 meter pool at Tiergarten is a much nicer swimming experience.

On a Sunday morning, I found the 'regulars' very accomodating of this English speaking stranger.

A clean, bright facility.