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Madrid opens municipal pools free on the first day of the season
Outdoor municipal pools open Friday with free access throughout the first day at most venues.
The season will begin with 25 outdoor pools spread across different districts and will run until 6 September. Several indoor facilities will join them and continue operating for recreational use during the hot months. This year, moreover, the City Council wants to turn these spaces into more than just a place to cool off.
The main new feature is 30-minute express sports classes, which will be given free of charge from Monday to Friday without prior registration. There will be morning and afternoon sessions with activities such as aquafitness, aquatic mobility and stretches led by specialised instructors. The idea is that any user can join in directly during their visit.
Free basic cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) workshops, taught by healthcare staff at the sports centres themselves, will also continue. They are aimed at adults and seek to bring basic first-aid knowledge closer to regular pool users.
Not all facilities will open at the same time. The Santa Ana, Moscardó and Vallecas pools will remain closed until early June because improvement works are still under way. The rest will be operating from this Friday, coinciding with the San Isidro celebrations and the start of the first days of intense heat in the capital.
Timetables remain largely unchanged: a morning session from 10:00 to 15:00, an afternoon session from 16:00 to 21:00, and full-day admission between 10:00 and 21:00. Those who buy a full-day ticket will receive a wristband to enter and leave the venue more easily.
Tickets can be bought both at the ticket office and online through the Madrid Móvil app and the municipal Sports portal. The City Council will reserve 80% of places for advance online sales and the remaining 20% for in-person sales. In addition, access control using QR codes is being strengthened this summer, a system designed to free up places when someone leaves the facility before their session ends.
In recent years, Madrid has accelerated the renewal of its network of public pools. According to the City Council, 18 facilities have already been refurbished and new spaces have been built in districts such as Barajas and Tetuán, something that had not happened for more than thirty years.
When temperatures rise, municipal pools become one of the most recognisable meeting points of the Madrid summer. Families, groups of friends, young people and older people fill these spaces from early on, especially in neighbourhoods where the heat is more intense and alternatives for escaping the asphalt are limited.