Aug 6, 2009, 12:54 GMT
Berlin - A door leading to a kingdom that will forever be closed to men opens ajar as two women slip inside. Seconds later the white, wooden door closes, blocking the view.
Men are kept at a distance by a sign bearing the German word Damenbad (Women's Swimming Pool). Behind that, and surrounded by long rows of old fashioned changing cabins, is an old institution: Lorettobad women's swimming pool.
It opened in the south-western German city of Freiburg in 1886 and is today the country's last remaining women-only swimming pool.
During Germany's imperial era in the 19th century concerns about morals and conventions led to the division between men and women. Over a hundred years later women feel attracted to the pool's relaxed atmosphere.
'Things are looked after more here, it's cosy and you don't have the feeling you're being watched,' said one of two young women who have removed the upper parts of their bikinis. 'We enjoy relaxing and not being stared at.'
However, it is not possible to run the pool without at least one man. That person is Guenter Maier, the deputy manager and also the pool attendant in Lorettobad. 'For me everyone is an equal guest, whether they are male or female, young or old,' says Maier.
The 55-year-old takes a relaxed attitude to his job but he remains professional whether he's working in the family swimming pool on one side of the pool's fence or in the women's bath on the other.
'There are people, however, who think it's a problem that I'm a man,' acknowledges Maier.
When Maier enters the women's section most guests carry on as if nothing has happened. A few look put out and some Muslim women disappear into a changing cabin.
'They've asked me when I'm on duty,' explains Maier. But even when his female colleagues are working, they have to take a break and it's during that time that Maier is the only man among 100 women.
'At the weekends it's very full here and towels lie right next to each other - that wouldn't be possible in an ordinary pool,' says one woman reading a novel.
She has been coming here for 30 years and says that compared to the past there are more people with immigrant backgrounds using the facility. Many Muslim women arrive wearing a veil but soon take it off.
Lorettobad is popular with women from every background. Turkish girls swim in the 25 by 10 metre large pool who don't want to use a mixed swimming pool for religious reasons.
Mothers can take male infants to the baths until the child reaches primary school age. Then their son must go to the mixed family pool. A group of schoolgirls who in any other pool would screech and scream are calm and chat quietly beneath Lorettobad's walnut trees.
'It's almost like being in a spa,' says Maier. He recalls a group of senior citizens who every morning occupy the same spot by reserving it with plastic mats. Then they unpack their thermos flasks and play cards and board games. They chat, drink tea or coffee and occasionally cool down with a swim.
The only time when the calm atmosphere is broken is when an unauthorised man enters the pool. 'Sometimes the teenage boys fire a table tennis ball across the fence and run in to fetch it back,' says Maier.
But that is the only way to spy on this world of women. To get a look from the family pool you would need a ladder and the fence has no knots in its wood.
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