You can now swim and dive all year round at the lido or indoor pool. The colourful bathing huts and unique setting remain as popular as ever. You can also fortify yourself with beverages, salads, grilled specialities and much more at the Lido beach restaurant.
Lido
Indoor swimming pool
It caused controversy when it opened in 1919 as Switzerland's first lido to offer mixed bathing. The bold undertaking to build a lido for the princely sum of 70,642 francs paid off by recording 31,596 visits in its first year. Its success soon attracted both envy and wagging fingers. The local tourism authority noted the following: "In the newspapers, on the street and in the pulpit, all the talk was of the "immoral pool". The lido was seen in some quarters as a disgrace." The reason was that men and women shared the same pool. The sexes swam together in the open lake – what a scandal!
The outcry forced the cantonal council to order "drastic" measures: male users had to wear bathing costumes that covered their chests (this already applied to women…), the pool had to be closed at lunchtime when the sun was at its hottest, photography was forbidden, and a supervisor was appointed by the council to ensure discipline and order.
Further pool-related stories from Lucerne may be found in the book