Budapest has several nicknames such as Paris of East or the Pearl of Danuba and also City of Spas. The baths in Budapest are here already for centuries, the city is perfectly located with many natural spring waters under the city. The bathhouses next to the river are mostly from the Turkish time. However even before the Turkish, the Romans already knew how to use this valuable water under the city for their wellbeing.
Nowadays Budapest is the city of medicinal waters and amazing thermal spas. The bathing culture in Hungaria is very lively, both young and old are making a lot of use of the bathhouses around the city. So when you are going to visit Budapest you can’t leave without visiting at least one bath or even multiple baths. But the question is which baths do you need to visit? The standard tourists recommendation would be to visit Gellart Baths. However we followed the advice of a local and went to Rudas Thermal Baths and Széchenyi Thermal Bath instead.
Rudas Thermal Bath
This is a great place in the weekend. In weekends both men and women are allowed to visit the bath. On Friday and Saturday the bath is open till 4 am. This makes the place even more special, there is a panorama bath on the roof of the building. From here you are sitting next to the Donube. Relax in the bath and enjoy the amazing view over the city by night from here.
There is also a great old section which will remind you of the fact that his bath is coming from the Turkish time. If you want to have the best thermal bath experience definitely visit Rudas. Entrance fee is 4,800 HUF for the night swimming and 4,200 HUF during the day.
Széchenyi Thermal Bath
This is maybe one of the most famous bath houses in Budapest. It is also the largest bath house of Europe. However it isn’t that old as Rudas, this bath was opened in the late 19th century which makes it one of the most recent baths in Budapest. This doesn’t make this bath less lovely.
The bath is amazing. The inner area is huge and you have two relax swimming pools with a swimming pool in the middle where you can do your exercise. Especially the bubbles are lovely in the left pool.
If you go inside the building you will find some medicinal baths and saunas. I have to admit my girlfriend was slightly disappointed. She loves extremely hot water temperature and I told her that Széchenyi has the hottest baths in Budapest, the water reaches the surface at a temperature of 75 degrees. However we couldn’t find a bath that goes that hot. The hottest bath that we could find here was 40 degrees while in Rudas there was a bath that was 42 degrees. Unfortunately the staff doesn’t speak proper English so they couldn’t help us either.
This incident doesn’t change the fact that this bath just looks amazing. It is open every day till 10 pm. The price to enter is 4,800 HUF per person.
Interested in going to Budapest, find a guide book here.
