I'm taking a casual poll of the "Best Places to Swim in the World" for a freelance story I'm working on. The topic is very open-ended: I'm looking for anything from the best place for an open-water swim, i.e. La Jolla Cove, to an olympic pool with an amazing setting, i.e. North Sydney Olympic Pool.
Your ideas would be most helpful to me; from the well-known watering holes to off-the-beaten spots, from swimming holes to hotel pools...And please note why you love swimming there.
My favorite swim spot is the ISHOF pool in Fort Lauderdale. The water is always clean, during open swim hours you can easily get or share a lane, the showers have lots of hot water. Best of all, it is just a one block walk to the ocean. Swimming north from the Hall of Fame, on a clear day, you might see barracuda, tarpon, sting rays, and reef fish.
When it comes to pools...the pool I grew up in as a kid is still the neatest pool I have ever swam in, seen or read about...The Venetian Pool in Coral Gables, Florida is still #1 in my book!
The pool has caves, beach, bridge and a rock cliff that is 30 feet high...(it used to be a high dive area...but was closed due to our litigious society).
The pool is straight out of the 1920's...truly magnificent.
There is an interesting book about pools called "Gold Medal Pools" by Buck Dawson. It has great pictures of unusual pools, including Liberace's piano-shaped pool. Buck's latest book "Mermaids" is about well-known female swimmers of the past and is very good. Buck's books can be ordered through the International Swimming Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame pool is my favorite pool also!
Best place to swim? It wasn't the best place to swim as far as the pool itself or the facility but I once went on a business trip to The Netherlands where I swam in a pool with some real interesting "natural" surroundings. Everybody was nude! I had written out a workout in my hotel room and then drove around looking for a pool. I had surfed the web before leaving the States and had a list of pools in the region. I must have gone to 4 or 5 pools where I couldn't swim because they were either closed to the public or they were having rec swim (and their rec swim meant there were kids everywhere and no lap lanes set up). Anyway, I found the one that had "Naturiste Zwemmen" or something like that and did my workout there. 4200 short course meters wearing just my cap and goggles!
Jeff
Many very arid deserts have pools of water that are present all year. The ones I am thinking of are pretty big, at least as large as 25 yard pool, and very deep, and surrounded by rocks, sand, and scrub. Often the rocks are large, and provide a lot of shade. I once was in Australia, near Alice Springs. We rented a jeep-like car and drove four hours to a couple. The quiet, peace, and serenity made it clear that these were holy places. I did go swimming in one - it was not clear to me if I was defiling a spiritual place or being baptised. I will never forget it.
Closer to home, there is a pool above one of the waterfalls at Yosemite; you can reach it by a moderately vigorous hike. It is best to go in late summer, while there is still plenty of water to swim in, it is not so fast and deep that you have to worry about being swept over the falls. This pool is a gently curved, very smooth bowl of granite, surrounded by tall pine trees. The water is cold. The stream into the pool runs across the ganite surface, and makes for a great water slide. There are always people there, but everyone knows the place is special.
My favorite place to swim is Lakeside (Louisville). It is an old rock quarry set in the middle of an established residential neighborhood. The 50-m course takes up only a portion of the total water area. With the rock cliffs and surrounding houses, it is the most unique setting I have ever seen. It has always been worth the drive from Michigan to race there in late summer before Nationals.
My favorite place to swim is the Forest Park Aquatic Center in Noblesville, IN. Every year I can't wait to move outdoors to this Olympic Size pool. Swimming with a clear blue sky overhead in crystal clear water while the sun warms you, there is no place better. Located in Forest Park and surrounded by mature trees this world class facility is only made better by the felowship of the Master Swimmers who venture here each summer.
