Afloat | Floating in Bratislava

The sun has made it. It peeks out from the milky white clouds the moment I reach the meadow. Beyond the meadow on the edge of town, the lake glitters. I enter a rickety changing room and a little later, walk over tiny pebbles a few meters into the water, then let myself fall.

We're a group of football fans attending the U21 European Championship matches in Slovakia. My first stop in Bratislava takes me up the romantic staircase to Slavín, the largest war memorial in Central Europe. Everything is blooming and fragrant, the streets and squares are exceptionally well-kept and planted. Not a cat in sight. The Soviet cemetery, with its memorial, obelisk, and soldier on top, forms a gigantic complex that is also viewed critically . Slavín towers over the city and castle, the UFO on the Danube bridge, skyscrapers, and the upside-down pyramid of the radio building . Bratislava sprawls across the city; on the next hill, the television tower rises into gathering clouds.

A quick swim. I thought you could swim in the Danube—on the riverbank, I understand. Where the map promised a bathing ship, there's nothing, and the river, confined within walls, is flowing violently. It's drizzling, the sky is turning black. Time to retreat to the main train station, behind which we've found small apartments in a hillside complex. Earplugs are available at reception; you can't survive a night without them. Trains screech incessantly past the bed, braking or honking.

We attend games and wander around: the Protestant cemetery with its sinking gravestones, tunnel-like staircases, the city walls, the old town, the Habsburg flair. Parliament, parks, tourists, beggars, people with handbag-sized dogs. Quaint pubs, a cat café that adopts abandoned animals from Ukraine, the National Gallery, and the river again. It rains all day.

I need to get in the water. Line 4 takes me to the northeastern edge of the city, past the old stadium with its Coca-Cola lampposts , a Dante Food diner, housing projects, dilapidated industrial buildings, and car dealerships. Then, hotels and shopping malls, with forested mountains in the background. At the final stop, Zlaté Piesky , a curved bridge leads over the highway to the lake. Towards the city, the TV tower greets me over a mountain; the bridge ends in a gentle curve on a meadow in front of the pool, which is connected to the campsite.

The pool opens at nine o'clock. Two girls lounge in the ticket booth behind a yellow-painted concrete gate, a security guard dozes in his chair. I pay six euros, startling blackbirds and great spotted woodpeckers, blinking in the breaking sun. Lush green grass, dew, daisies. The numerous stalls and cafés are closed, deck chairs deserted. Three boys throw stones at ducks, a lifeguard plays on his cell phone. The temperature rises by the minute; the soft water of the light-green lake is warmer than Berlin's outdoor pools. I'm alone in the lake and I start swimming, a wild squeal of joy in my stomach.