Swimming
Swimming around Lenzkirch: which pools are worth it — and which one isn't right now
The Hochschwarzwald isn’t a classic swimming area — at 887 metres the water is rarely lukewarm. Still, there are four options around Lenzkirch, and they differ more than the map would suggest.
Let’s start with what you should know first.
The nearest pool isn’t the best one right now
The Freibad Kappel open-air pool is one kilometre from our front door — fourteen minutes on foot. That sounds like the perfect summer plan, and one day it will be again. Right now it isn’t: the large pool is being refurbished, and we expect it to reopen in May 2027.
We’re putting this here because we’d rather tell you beforehand than afterwards. A fourteen-minute walk with children and a beach bag to an empty pool isn’t a good holiday moment.
What you will still find there: in summer the grounds become a stage. There are concerts, and the Kappler Dorffest, the village festival, is part of it. If you happen to be here at the right time, the walk is worth it — just not with your swimming things.
The best water: Strandbad Titisee
Lake Titisee is the reason most people come to this corner, and the Strandbad, the lido, is the underrated part of it: admission is free, and it’s open daily from 9 am to 7 pm.
By car it’s 16 kilometres and 19 minutes. By bike it’s only 8 kilometres and around 30 minutes, because the cycle path runs through the valley while the road has to go the long way round. Why that’s the most interesting number on this page is explained in detail in Cycling to Lake Titisee.
Reliable swimming: Freibad Lenzkirch
If you want to swim lengths and would rather not rely on lake water, head to the Freibad Lenzkirch open-air pool in the main village. It’s open from May to September, 3.7 kilometres and seven minutes away by car, eleven minutes by bike.
That’s the pool for the day you simply want to swim without turning it into an outing.
The most beautiful: Schluchsee
If we had to recommend one, it would be this. With 5.14 square kilometres of water, Lake Schluchsee is the largest lake in the Black Forest. It’s 7.5 kilometres long, up to 62 metres deep, and at 930 metres it sits another forty metres higher than we do.
There’s a reason it’s so big: it was dammed between 1929 and 1932. Today the water level is on average thirty metres above the old shoreline — walk along the shore and you’re walking over sunken land.
There are two places to swim. The Naturstrandbad Seebrugg, a natural beach at the south-eastern end, has a sunbathing lawn and changing rooms. Aqua Fun is right on the lake, with massage jets, a water slide and an adventure playground — that’s the place to go if children are coming along.
And if you’d rather look than swim: the MS Schluchsee runs round trips of about an hour, stopping at Aha, at Unterkrummenhof and at the dam. From the water you can see how big the lake really is.
By car it’s 13 kilometres and a quarter of an hour. By bike, at 50 minutes, it becomes a proper tour — lovely, but not something you do on the spur of the moment with a towel under your arm.
In short
| Destination | Car | Bike |
|---|---|---|
| Freibad Kappel (refurbishment until May 2027) | 3 min | 4 min |
| Freibad Lenzkirch (May to September) | 7 min | 11 min |
| Strandbad Titisee (free admission) | 19 min | 30 min |
| Schluchsee | 15 min | 50 min |
All distances are measured from our front door. Opening times and the condition of the pools change, so a quick check before you set off is always worth it, especially for the Kappel pool.
And if you’re coming in winter: up here the water isn’t a topic anyway, but there’s a cross-country ski trail almost on the doorstep. More on that in Winter in Lenzkirch.
