Budapest Thermal Baths and Spa is the collective description for the celebrated thermal-bathing culture of the Hungarian capital, which sits atop a remarkable network of natural geothermal springs and is internationally renowned as the City of Spas. Budapest has more thermal springs than any other capital city in the world - around 120 springs feeding the network of historic bath houses across the city - and the thermal-bathing tradition is one of the most distinctive and important features of the city's cultural life and visitor appeal. The thermal-bathing tradition in Budapest dates back to Roman times, when the settlement of Aquincum on the site of the present city exploited the natural hot springs, but the present culture owes its character above all to the Ottoman occupation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Turkish rulers built a series of domed bath houses over the springs, several of which - the Rudas, the Kiraly and the Veli Bej baths - survive and remain in use today, with their characteristic octagonal pools beneath domed roofs pierced by star-shaped coloured-glass skylights. The two largest and most famous bath complexes were built in the great spa-building boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Szechenyi Baths in the City Park, opened in 1913, is one of the largest medicinal bath complexes in Europe, with its vast neo-Baroque yellow buildings enclosing fifteen indoor pools and three grand outdoor thermal pools that remain open and steaming through the depths of the Hungarian winter. The Gellert Baths, opened in 1918 in the Art Nouveau Hotel Gellert on the Buda bank, are celebrated for their spectacular Zsolnay-tiled interior halls and their ornate thermal pools. The waters of the Budapest springs, rich in dissolved minerals including calcium, magnesium, sulphate and fluoride, have been used for centuries for the treatment of joint and rheumatic complaints, and the bath complexes combine medical-treatment facilities with recreational and social bathing. The principal baths are open daily throughout the year, with single-entry and combined tickets, and the Szechenyi baths in particular have become famous for their late-night summer "sparty" bathing parties.

Type: Activity

Address: Budapest, Hungary