Alfred Nakache Sports Center, Sports facility with indoor swimming pool in the 20th arrondissement, Paris, France
The Centre sportif Alfred Nakache is a public sports facility in the Belleville area of the 20th arrondissement of Paris, built around an indoor swimming pool. The main pool is 25 meters long and made of stainless steel, and the complex also includes a children's pool, three fitness rooms, a sauna, and a martial arts room.
The facility was renovated and brought to its current form in 2009, when major works updated the building and its equipment. A public pool had already served the Belleville neighborhood on this site for several decades before that renovation.
The center is named after Alfred Nakache, a French swimmer of Jewish origin who survived deportation to Auschwitz and returned to compete at the Olympics. In the Belleville neighborhood, where communities from many backgrounds live side by side, the name carries a particular weight that visitors often feel when they first read it at the entrance.
The center is open Tuesday through Sunday, but some time slots are reserved for lessons and clubs, so it is worth checking the schedule before you go. Several metro lines and Vélib' bike stations nearby make it easy to reach without a car.
The main pool is made of stainless steel, which is rare in public swimming pools and gives the water an unusually smooth feel against the skin. The water is also treated with ozone rather than chlorine alone, which means the sharp chemical smell that many people associate with indoor pools is almost entirely absent.
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