Thermalstrandbad

Because of the sulphur content in its healing waters, Baden bei Wien has a distinctive ‘poached egg’ smell in parts of town. All the more unusual, therefore, when an outdoor swimming pool used for recreation and fun has this ubiquitous ‘eggy’ scent. If you’ve got a finely tuned nose, the egg smell is very in your face at the Thermalstrandbad. With its dubious brownish stretch of sand backed by a functionalist building from 1926, the pool complex is a sulphurous Hades-meets-Majorca. Originally, the designers wanted to import sand from the Adriatic (not exactly known for sandy beaches, but anyway); in the end they settled for sand from Melk in the Danube Valley.