Bostalsee: The Lake We Escape To When It Bakes

There’s a point in a German summer where the apartment has done its job — shutters down, AC humming, everyone fed — and the kids still look at you like, now what? That’s the day I start talking about Bostalsee.

It’s a lake. A big one, about forty-five minutes from our front door, and on a brutal afternoon it’s the simplest fix I know.

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A lake, and not a small one

Bostalsee is over in the Saarland, near a village called Bosen. It’s one of the larger lakes in this corner of Germany. It was built as a reservoir, which is a boring origin story for something this nice to swim in.

Getting there is easy: you take the A62 toward Trier and turn off near Nohfelden. From Landstuhl it’s roughly forty-five minutes, depending on how the autobahn is behaving that day. We’re actually a little closer to it than Kaiserslautern is, which surprises people who assume everything fun is on the K-Town side.

Everything official about the lake — beach hours, entry fees, boat rental, what’s open this week — lives on the Bostalsee tourism site, and they keep an English version. Check it the morning you go; the season changes what’s running.

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Why it works when it’s hot

The water, mostly. Even when the air is sitting at 34 degrees, the lake stays genuinely cool. There’s a real sand beach at the Strandbad on the Gonnesweiler side where you can set up for the whole day. Little kids can wade in the shallow end; stronger swimmers have the rest of the lake to themselves.

If lying on a towel isn’t your thing, a footpath rings the entire lake — somewhere around seven kilometers, flat enough for a stroller or an old dog. You can rent a pedal boat or a paddleboard. Out in the middle, people sail and windsurf. We usually just walk half the loop, swim, and eat more ice cream than we should.

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A few things I’d tell a friend before they go

• Go early on a hot weekend. The good beach spots and the close parking are gone by late morning, and the Strandbad charges a small entry fee, so bring a bit of cash.
• On a weekday it’s a completely different lake. If your schedule bends at all, a Tuesday in July is almost empty.
• The far side, away from the main beach, is the quiet one. You get grass and shade instead of sand and crowds.
• There’s a big Center Parcs resort on the lake, but you don’t have to stay there to use the water or the path. Plenty of us just come for the day.
• Bring a picnic. There are snack stands and ice cream too, but the lunch line on a hot Sunday tests a person’s patience.

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This is the trip I send guests on when the apartment and the AC have done all they can and you just want real water under an open sky. If you want the stay-cool-at-home version first, I wrote about surviving the heat indoors too.

So if you’re with us in July and the forecast turns mean, don’t sit inside feeling sorry for yourselves. Throw the towels in the car. There’s a decent chance you’ll spot us out there with Boris, arguing about whose turn it is to buy the next round of ice cream.

— Irina