Swimming is a great way to stay in shape without damaging your knees or other parts of your legs in the way running can. Health spas and gyms tend to have large swimming pools. Most of the best municipal sport centres come in the form of the Stadtbad, or city pool. If you don’t care whether you are swimming in an architectural masterpiece or not, it is worth checking out www.berlinerbaederbetriebe.de to see which swimming pool is nearest your house. Most are not open on Sundays, and are especially busy during after-work hours (18:00 to 21:00). Entrance is €4, or €36 for 10 times, and is reduced for students, families, and those who swim before 08:00 or after 20:00. Swimming is so popular in Berlin that even some bars, such as the Badeschiff and Freischwimmer in Kreuzberg, have swimming facilities.

In the summer, many Berliners prefer the numerous lakes surrounding the city to indoor swimming pools. The most popular (and crowded) is Strandbad Wannsee, mostly because it is reachable by the S-Bahn running west of the city. Entrance is €2 but there can be terrible queues. Calmer and just as beautiful are Schlachtensee (U-Bahn Schlachtensee), also in the west but before Wannsee, and Müggelsee, the infinitely more enjoyable Ossi answer to Wannsee. These three are merely the most popular; if you want somewhere peaceful to swim, pick out a smaller lake, of which there are many. Many freeze over in winter (see Ice Skating), but a club called Berliner Seehunde (www.berliner-seehunde.de) goes polar-bearing (ice swimming).