Chocholowskie Termy

The Podhale basin sits over a deep geothermal aquifer, and since the 1990s several complexes have been built to use it. Chocholowskie Termy, opened in 2016, is among the largest: water is drawn from a borehole over three kilometres deep at around eighty degrees at source, cooled and fed to some thirty pools indoors and out, with slides, saunas, salt and steam rooms, and outdoor pools where you sit in hot water in the open with the Tatra ridge on the horizon, which is the reason to come in winter or when it is snowing. The water is mineral-rich and slightly sulphurous. The complex is large, modern and family-oriented, with everything that implies about noise and queues at weekends. It sits at the edge of Chocholow, the wooden village, so a visit can be combined with the old street, and it is a standard bad-weather alternative when the mountains are closed in.

What you actually see

• Water from three kilometres down - around eighty degrees at source, cooled for the pools.
• About thirty pools - indoors and out, with slides and sauna complexes.
• Outdoor bathing with mountains - the Tatra ridge visible from the hot water.
• A bad-weather option - what people do when the peaks are closed in.

When to go

All year; best in cold weather. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Very busy at weekends and in school holidays, with queues for slides and lockers. Tickets are sold in timed blocks and overrunning costs extra. It is a modern water park, not a quiet spa. Parking fills early.

Nearby

The wooden village of Chocholow is at the edge; Zakopane is east.