Where Are The World's Coolest Hotel Pools? |
Wednesday, 31 October 2007 |
We really do take swimming pools for granted. Lounging poolside at the
hotel, swimming a few laps at the health club, or dipping into the
Jacuzzi at the spa — we are used to pools but we want them fabulous.
Scary-blue tubs with tepid, chlorinated water just don’t do it.
Right now, we are hunting for the best and most amazing hotel swimming
pools in the world and we’d like you to help us. Please let us know
where your favorite, cool pool is. (
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)
While you are at it, you might be interested in some history of the
pool. Bathing pools, of course, predate swimming pools, and we have all
heard of the lavish and sophisticated ancient baths. But the swimming
pool has a long history, too, dating back to ancient times.
Already in 2500 B.C., Egyptians knew swimming as an organized activity
and depictions of swimming from India are equally old. Ancient Romans
constructed artificial pools for athletic training, nautical games and
military exercises. Swimming was also part of boys’ education.
Extravagant swimming pools with live fish entertained Roman emperors,
and gave the pool its Latin name piscina. Ancient Greeks did not
include swimming in their early Olympic games but they did practice the
sport and built swimming pools as part of their baths. The first heated
swimming pool was built in Rome in the first century BC.
England’s first indoor swimming pool, the 40-foot-long Bagnio in Lemon
Street, Goodman's Fields in London, opened in 1742. King Ludwig II of
Bavaria built the first-ever wave pool with electrically heated water
and light, in his Linderhof castle in 1879.
In the U.S. the earliest public swimming pools were small indoor pools
built with the intention of encouraging better hygiene among the poor.
By the 1920s, the American public pool had become a large public place
of amusement and recreation for thousands at a time. Home swimming
pools became popular in the U.S. after WWII and Hollywood films made
the backyard pool an important status symbol.
All of this historical stuff is really rather exhausting when all we
really want is serious pleasure – superior amenities, spectacular
views, impeccable details, breath-taking eye candy. Let us know where
such pools are, so that we can let the rest of the world know, too. By
Tuija Seipell
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