A few weekends ago, the only outdoor swimming spot in Brussels closed for good. Flow, as the pool was called, was open for four years. Now, Brussels, a city of 1.2 million, the economic and political heart of Belgium, the Washington of Europe, has no open-air swimming facilities – the only European city with more than one million inhabitants to enjoy that sorry accolade. Amsterdam, which has a slightly smaller population than Brussels, has 20.
OK – Belgium being the size of a pea, we admittedly do not have to travel very far to find a pool. Still, I have always felt there to be something slightly unfair, slightly undignified about having to trek out to Flanders of Wallonia. Why should we have to leave our city when she is at her summertime finest?
When I was younger, we had Bruxelles-les-Bains, an artificial beach strip temporarily arranged along the Brussels canal, with food stalls where you could buy jumbo Congolese beignets. Bruxelles-les-Bains was our city at its quintessence – laid back, impossibly diverse but also intensely village-like. In spite of its name, it did not actually have a pool, only sprinklers, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Then, one summer, the beach strip went – something to do with a new residential construction project. Flow arrived in 2021, a nonprofit initiative by campaigners. A highly densely populated city like ours, where a quarter of residents live below the poverty line, needed to do better by its residents.
Put off by reports that the limited tickets booked out weeks in advance, I did not go the first few years. At the tail end of the summer of 2023, I finally decided to give the pool a go, opting for their 45-minute women’s hour on Saturday morning, deliberately priced at an astonishingly low €3.
Located in an industrial no-man’s-land by the city’s canal, the pool was largely shielded from public view by grandstands made from reclaimed, weather-worn wood. I’d cycled past the place countless times, had heard the laughter and splashing, but I’d never been curious enough to take a dip. When I finally walked down the stairs to the changing rooms a few minutes before 11am, I caught my first glimpse of the clear, blue water, still and empty for now. It seemed like an urban mirage.
The first 10 minutes of our allotted time slot passed in complete silence. The other women and I shyly smiled at each other at every opportunity, a morning sisterhood of strangers, all of us marvelling that we had this small pool in the middle of our city all to ourselves. After a lap or two, I noticed an acquaintance, and then another. We moved to the pool’s upper grandstands when our time was up, chatting until well after the women’s hour had ended, the sun on our shoulders.
I sang the pool’s praises to everyone who would let me until, a week or two later, it closed for the season. Later that year the pool began offering cold-water swimming sessions, which became even more popular than their summertime offer. I had no interest in those, but when they added a pop-up sauna the following year, I was back.
Taking a visitor from the US with me, on December 31 I went for the first and only time. We had the cosy, tiny sauna to ourselves until a Dutch couple showed up and put a brisk end to the hushed, spa-like etiquette we had observed until then. They were as Dutch as Dutch people can be – tall, loud and determined to make conversation. We became fast friends, the setting again creating fast, neighbour-like bonds between us.
We took turns leaving the sauna every 15 minutes or so for a quick dip in the ice-cold water. My friend slipped and fell face down at one point, while I was sure I was getting frostbite. We nibbled on cake left for us by the friendly staff on a table by the pool. It was possibly the best start to a New Year’s Eve I have ever had.
Now that Flow is gone, taking a dip will require more planning, time and effort. I’m not sure where I will go this summer – most likely the coast, maybe the nearest recreation park. I do know that no one will offer me cake when I’m there. More importantly, that it won’t feel like home.
Linda A Thompson is a Belgian journalist and editor
