The Lukacs Baths (Szent Lukacs gyogyfurdo) are one of the historic thermal bath complexes of Budapest, occupying a site on the Buda bank of the Danube in the second district near the Margaret Bridge, fed by the thermal springs that have been exploited at this spot for many centuries. The baths are among the most authentic and least touristy of the great Budapest baths, retaining a strong following among local residents and medical-spa patients, and are renowned for the healing properties of their mineral waters. The site has one of the longest bathing histories in the city. The thermal springs here were used in the medieval period, and the order of the Knights Hospitaller (the Order of Saint John) established a monastery and hospital at the springs in the twelfth century. During the Ottoman occupation the Turks built baths here and used the water to power gunpowder mills, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the springs were developed as a spa and a centre for the treatment of rheumatic and joint complaints. The present bath buildings date principally from the 1880s and 1890s, when the complex was rebuilt as a modern medicinal spa. The baths became a celebrated institution of nineteenth and twentieth-century Budapest, a meeting place for the city's writers, artists and intellectuals, many of whom took the waters and met in the courtyard. The courtyard walls are lined with marble votive tablets, placed by grateful patients from across Europe over more than a century, testifying in many languages to the healing effects of the waters - a tradition that gives the baths a distinctive and atmospheric character. The waters, rich in calcium, magnesium and other minerals, are prescribed for degenerative joint disease and other complaints. The complex holds a mix of indoor thermal and medicinal pools and outdoor swimming and sitting pools, together with a full range of saunas, steam rooms and medical-treatment facilities including drinking cures from the spring water. The baths retain a quieter, more local and more therapeutic atmosphere than the grander tourist-focused Szechenyi and Gellert baths, and are favoured by those seeking the authentic medicinal-spa tradition of the city. They are open daily and reached from the centre by tram along the Buda embankment.

Type: Activity

Address: Frankel Leo ut 25-29, Budapest, Hungary