Dear Steemit friends,
While I was away from steemit in 2018, I got to visit some of the countries and beautiful cities in Europe and Budapest was by far my most favorite city.
Not only the capital city of Hungary , Budapest was beautiful, it is also very affordable. We found the public transportation, accommodation and food to be so much cheaper than its neighboring countries/cities like Vienna or Prague but equally beautiful as them. Or I am being biased because they have thermal baths!
Thermal baths
Are one of the main attractions of Budapest . And it is the activities that not only tourists but locals enjoy doing. And Budapest is the only capital in the world where they have about 100 over medicinal spring . That also mean that we were spoiled with lots thermal baths to choose from during our short visit.
Szechenyi thermal bath
We decided with Szechenyi thermal bath because it is not only the largest baths in Budapest and also the most well known bath as well. We paid about 20 USD per person. The price varies on the type of tickets you get, so generally it cost from 15 usd to 25 usd. More information in another post.
Széchenyi Baths
The bath is located in the Pest side of the city ( the city is known as buda + pest hence the name Budapest).. It is also located in City Park just near Heroes Square and Vajdahunyad Castle. We visited these places after our visit to the bath .
All the baths are mixed gender with no segregation of sex but of course swimming costume is a must.
As soon as we come out from the metro stop, we saw Széchenyi Baths building, there are also signs showing so it is hard to miss the bath.
The yellow colour ancient building, we walked a few minutes to get to the entrance that we saw nearby .
one of the entrances to the bath, not the main entrance
After doing some inquires about the tickets , it turned out this particular entrance sells only tickets to enter the bath ( no cabin rental). Since we have our bags, we wanted to rent a cabin so we proceeded to the main entrance.
We were glad that we had to go to the main entrance as it was so much grand and beautiful. The interiors of the lobby felt like some kind of church or museums.
the main lobby and the ceiling of the building at the lobby
We spent a few minutes taking pictures at the lobby .. Seriously look at those ceiling!It somehow reminded me of the bath in Iran with intricate details.
Do you see " the entree sign", I thought it was cute! We got ourselves 2 entrance tickets to the bath and one cabin rental. They also have lockers, bath robes, slippers and bathing suit for rentals with a charge. We opted for the cabin as we wanted to get privacy while changing our clothes.
Entry tickets were not paper or cards but waistbands. We were given two , one for each of us.They didn’t tell us what was our cabin number or anything. They just gave the waist bands...We scanned the waistband in the metal barrier to enter.. After entering , there is some kind of screen to check our cabin number or lockers number if you rent lockers.
To get a cabin number you simply hold your wristband over the sensor on the wall and a number will be displayed. You also use your wristband to open and close your cabin/locker.
Cabin are tiny cubicles where you can keep your bags and change into swimsuits.
The cabin was super tiny.. There isn’t even light , so it was kind of dark.
And the first thing we did was to check out the outdoor pool.
There are a variety of indoor thermal pools, sauna , or message session (paid) .. and Each of them have different temperatures .
I forget to mention that it was end of September when we visited. The weather was about 7C and since it was early in the morning it was freezing.. I was wearing 3 layers of warm jackets before changing into swim suit.
Mistakenly we were so eager to get a dip in the outdoor pool .. I will say it was a bad idea since it was freezing , once we get wet , it was so cold to get photos ..The Outdoor Thermal Pool was heated to 38 degrees Celsius.
Getting into the warm water felt heavenly and very refreshing. There were also water jets all around the pool. In the center of the pool was a Jacuzzi where you could sit and there was also a mini “lazy river” around the edge of it with strong currents that was great fun to float around in.
This large rectangular outdoor pool is for people who want to swim lengths but you must wear a swimming cap to use this pool. The swimming caps are not needed anywhere else.
After that we decided to check out the indoor thermal pools. Although I couldn’t get enough and super stocked with thermal bath outside, we didn’t want to get sick as well.
Inside pool aren’t very exciting to be honest , some of the pools look old and a bit rusty .
Temperatures are in different ranges and some of the pool has some smell of minerals. It was also busy with people having exercises lessons..
They also got pools with cold water , 16 c temperature, each pool is in individual room separated with doors.
After spending about 4 hours in the bath, we decided to head home.
We then toured the bath one last time..there were sunbath chairs available .But it was a cold autumn day that we didn't see anyone using it.By that time, the place was already very crowded.
We also saw there was somebody in charge / lifeguards in the enclosed tiny booth.
We finally dropped our wristbands off as we exited through the turnstile.
It was such a fun and relaxing day spent in Budapest and also indeed an experience that I won’t forget.