Bathing in Budapest

They have a saying in Hungary. If you dig in Budapest, you'll hit a hot spring. And I'm happy to report that they make extremely good use of this natural resource. 

Jill and I went to Széchenyi Thermal Baths, the largest bath complex in Europe apparently. With certified healing waters. Very fancy. The building was very beautiful and large to be sure. We decided on a morning ticket, from six-eight to try to avoid other tourists. We arrived at 6:05 and there was already a line up to buy tickets. But all locals. It seemed to be the over 60 age group mostly. We bought our tickets, went through the turnstile and were immediately lost. We were directed by multiple members of staff as we walked through white rooms, down spiral staircases and shied away from the darkened basement. We eventually found a locker and then couldn't find the pool. We walked up more spiral staircases, through rooms with pool chairs but no pools, rooms with what looked like horse stalls and a few rooms with itty-bitty cold pools. We eventually found our way to slightly larger luke-warm pools which we floated in until we stealthily followed a fellow bather to the larger outside ones. Where we basked in the sun for an hour with the retirement crowd who sure knew how to relax. The stairs to the pools were full of bathers leaning back in the healing waters, working on their tans. 

There were the stereotypical old men playing chess by the fountains and taking a walk through what we termed the whirlpool pool. Immensely fun. I think we scared off the real bathers a bit. But we left the baths feeling energised and healed of our aches and pains. Now we're on the train back to Bratislava to head right to Vienna for a night and then off to Salzburg. Home of the Sound of Music. I'm pretty darn excited. 

I didn't take any photos on my phone so this is from a pamphlet. We also took a walk around a castle on the Buda side which was lovely.