Page 56 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Budapest

54  INTRODUCING BUD APEST

Exploring Budapest’s Baths up the biggest bathing complex
and Pools in Europe. In addition to the
usual indoor thermal pools, they
also boast outdoor thermal and
Heated deep inside the earth, the waters of the mineral- swimming pools, complete with
rich hot springs which bubble up through fractures in sun terraces. Among the hottest
the rocky hills of Buda and Óbuda have given the city a spa-waters in the city, the
Turkish-influenced bathing culture which has survived outdoor thermal pool is popular
even the rigours of Communism. A total of 31 spa-water even in the depths of winter.
As well as the thermal pools,
pools and thermal baths, including both indoor and Budapest’s bathing establish-
outdoor options, make taking the waters an unmissable ments also include a steam
treat for visitors to Budapest. room and sauna. Professional
massages are almost always
available for a small fee. Some
Veli Bej Bath is right next to places offer medicinal mud
The Turkish Influence the Lukács Baths complex baths. You will be invited to
Although the ruins of Roman (see below). take a shower, and indulge in
thermal baths dating from the Many of the city’s newer a short nap in the rest room
2nd century AD have been baths and almost all the Turkish before you leave.
found in Óbuda, it was only baths are for both men and
under the Ottoman occupation women. The Rudas Baths are
of the 16th–17th centuries (see the exception; they are open to
pp28–9), that the bathing culture men only on weekdays, except
really took hold in Budapest. Tuesdays when they accept only
Four stunning Turkish-built women. At weekends they
baths, some of the few are open to both men and
rema ining examples of Ottoman women, when bathing suits
architecture in Budapest, are still are obligatory. On single-sex
in operation. The Rudas, the Rácz days a small apron is provided.
Hotel & Thermal Spa, the Király
and the Veli Bej Bath were all After the Turks
built in the 16th century, and are Swim in style at the Rudas Baths
con structed on a single model. The late 19th and early 20th
A marble staircase leads into century was a new golden
a chamber containing a dome- age for Budapest (see pp34–5), Spa Hotels
topped, octagonal thermal and saw the building of a Nestling at the foot of Gellért
pool, which is surrounded by number of splendid baths. Hill, the beautiful Gellért Hotel
smaller dome-covered pools at Many have spring-water and Baths Complex is the
temperatures ranging from icily swim ming pools attached. oldest and most famous of a
cold to roastingly hot. The most Opened in 1894 the Neo- handful of luxury hotels in
beautiful are almost certainly the Classical Lukács Baths offer two Budapest offering swimming
Rudas Baths, followed closely by outdoor swimming pools as and thermal pools, steam
the Király Baths. The Rácz Baths well as the 16th-century Császár rooms, sauna and massage. The
have been extended and facilities thermal pool. The Széchenyi renowned Gellért Baths were
improved to include a thermal Baths, opened 20 years later on opened to the general public
spa and hotel complex. The the Pest side of the river, make in 1918, and include a fabulous,
marble-columned indoor
swimming pool, a labyrinth
of thermal baths that can be
used by both sexes, single-sex
nudist sun-bathing areas and
an outdoor wave pool. A hugely
popular wave machine is
switched on in the latter for
10 minutes in every hour.
A second wave of spa-hotels
were built in the 1970s and
‘80s. Set on Margaret Island,
the modern, squeaky-clean
and extremely luxurious
Danubius Health Spa Resort
Margitsziget, is linked by an
Outdoor pool at the Gellért Hotel and Baths Complex underground passage to the

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