Széchenyi Gyógyfürdő és Uszoda

I realize that probably no one who will look at this blog reads or speaks Hungarian. I certainly don't. But being immersed in the culture for a while, I'm beginning to catch onto a few words, here and there. I thought I'd pass along the favor and try to immerse you in th language a bit as well.

What you are looking at is the main entrance to the large Széchenyi thermal baths. I went there for a massage and a soak and to have a look about.



This is the largest medicinal bath in Europe. As you can see, the lobby is quite ornate.

The building forms a ring around two large pools, one heated and one less so. Although the interior contains many (perhaps dozens) of other pools and baths of various temperatures, I only dipped in the heated one shown below.

the other outdoor pools is roped off with swimming lanes and was populated by people who felt like exercising.

As you can see from the sign, the heated pool was at 28C and the ambient temperature was 11C.

The water coming from the jets in the base of the statue of the naked woman and her swan (don't know what that is about) is much cooler and felt cold by comparison to the water in the pool. The warm water (and boy, did it feel good!) was injected from the bottom of the pool. I was able to stand over the warm jet and got a great hydro-massage.

As you can see from the stacked lounge chairs between the building and the pools, this is place replace the lack of a beach for the Hungarian during the warmer season.

About an hour and a half later than the initial photo of the heated pool, I took the one below. It was drizzling lightly and, no doubt the humidity was higher. As a result, the steam from the hot water was more apparent.

the pools were filled with men and women of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities. Lots of tourists from Asia, the US and UK, and western Europe as I could tell from overhearing conversations. As at the Gellert spa, Hungarians treat an outing to the bath much as they treat a dinner out. They linger and talk and enjoy themselves.

Even though it was in the 50's F, getting out of the hot water and walking in the cool air while wet was much less of a shock than you'd expect.

While there I also enjoyed a pretty good massage and the roaring hot sauna. The sauna was advertised to be at 100C (!). Don't know if it was quite that hot, but is damn hot. Sitting in there for 10 minutes was about all I could stand. With the 100% humidity in there with the high heat, it
doesn't take long to be covered with sweat that has no place to go and doesn't cool. After a 10 minute visit, I went back outside to cool down (rather than using the provided cold plunge pool) and sat and steamed (literally) for a while. This was the first time since our visit to La Paz, Mexico in August last year that I've been really warm all the way through. It was a nice contrast to life in Seattle.

But getting a shower and redressed did feel good. On my way home I snapped one last photo of the lobby. You really gotta visit this place on your trip to Budapest. Quite a treat.