Tel Aviv, Israel - Gordon Pool on the Promenade

GORDON POOL 

Located on the Promenade between the Hilton Hotel on the hill - then the two land bike path and huge walking street - AND the Mediterranean

This landmark was on our running route.  OK, OK by popular demand, since most of you know we landed (literally) in Tel Aviv last Tuesday, I am foregoing my last two Berlin entries (later later) and now posting on Tel Aviv - we are leaving tomorrow and it's been quite a week.  Of course we have had no rainy days here (best days for blogging).  The weather is hot but not excessively, and humid.  We have a washer/dryer and a drying rack but clothes take a long time to dry even in the sun.  Tel Aviv a hard place for an outsider to get used to - and then becomes equally difficult to leave!

For those residents and visitors who enjoy the salt water bathing but prefer doing laps in a pool, Tel Aviv's Gordon swimming pool offers up the best of both worlds. Gordon swimming pool, which dates to 1956 and is something of an institution in the White City, underwent a complete overhaul in 2009.

28JUN14 0930 am

Located on Tel Aviv’s renovated and beautiful promenade, the pool is surrounded by tall palm trees and overlooks the yachts and waves of the Mediterranean Sea. The facility includes an Olympic-size swimming pool (50m), a children’s pool and a toddlers’ pool but, instead of typical chlorinated water, the three pools are filled with salty ground water drawn from a depth of 150 meters.  It is used by many lap swimmers and lanes are divided by speed and swimmer capability.

27JUN14 2200 - almost empty - 30 minutes later
it was dry with the lines resting on the tiles

We walked by here last night and the pool was EMPTY.  Danny couldn't believe it would be full by morning.  I went on line and learned that every evening, after closing hours, the pools are emptied and then refilled with fresh, clean water. As a result, the water is particularly cold, even in the summer: You can often see shivering visitors wading their way in to adjust to the temperature. Regulars will tell you that the best way to keep warm is to just plunge in and start swimming.

Plaque outside the pool in 4 languages
giving a bit of the history.