Bathing in Budapest

In late June 2023 I decided out of the blue to visit the city of Budapest, have always heard about its emblematic thermal baths and wanted to chill out, disconnect from my life in London and try those bath for a bit, why not? This is the flight I took for this short trip:

This was the first time I used the Wizz airline, and I notice that, outrageously, they were trying to charge me for a seat if I was to check-in before the online-check in open, so my advise to you is to wait until you are within 24 hours of departure to check-in, otherwise they will charge you for a seat!

The baths that I visited while in Budapest were:

Lukacs Thermal Bath; located in the north of the city of Buda, on the left hand side of the Danube, I entered this bath for free because I had bought a Budapest 24 visit card which included this particular bath on its free options. Unfortunately, I lost the card while in the bath, but I think it was a good money for value purchase, as it gave discount access to other baths and attractions in Budapest. I will definitely recommend this bath, it was populated mostly by old Hungarian users, well over their 60s, and I know that people of that age range tend to visit places that to me are valuable in term of peace and substance. The mineral pools in this bath really stand out, you can smell the sulphur properly, the essence is strong, unlike the other two baths I visited in which the amount of sulphur on the bath was no that much detectable

Rudas Thermal Bath; with views of the river, I found this bath the most rewarding of them all. The entrance cost me all in all £20 and I loved the pools that they had. My skin felt much better right after the baths. The premises has like two sections, a modern one with tiny pools of different temperatures and an old areas with 6 pools of mineral baths that are arranged in the form of a star. That old area, being indoor with a cupule, can be quite noise if there are many people, but overall I strongly recommend this bath. The people that I saw in here were mostly Hungarians on the 30s or 40s

Szechenyi Thermal Bath; this is by far the most famous of all the baths in Budapest, I counted 11 indoor pools and 3 outdoors, surely they have more if you decide to pay the premium access for spas. This Thermal bath is worth visiting...but only once. Is very pretty, but also very busy and it was full of tourist, funny enough me included haha. So yes, I visited so I had the silly sticker of "being there" but I won't be coming back. You could not even smell sulphur inside the pools at all

Apart from the Thermal baths, the main objective of the trip, I did other things in Budapest that I did enjoy. Tried to visit the Labirintus Budavari, and underground cave that takes over 30' to walk, as well as to visit the Houdini Museum, a famous magician from the late 1800s, both of which are located pretty close to one another, but unfortunately (and to my shock) there was no one in reception to attend me, could have been the heat of the day that the receptionist abandon their post, or were they in the lunch break? I found it surprising, in the Labirintus I actually recorded myself on the security cameras with my phone and shouted quite a bit, but nobody show up to sell me a ticket

Other places I visited while in Budapest were:

Szimpla ruin bar; this is a must so see! Such a cool place to have a drink, and they have street food nearby, absolutely loved the atmosphere, with live music and not many people for such an original place. Funny enough, the drinks and just about everything in Budapest is arranged by multiples of 200 FH (Forint), so the drinks were mostly 1,800FH or 1,400FH or 2.200 FH, etc, I guess this is due to the coin exchange, the lovely and heavy 200FH. With the Euro and the Pound, the multiples are set mostly in units of 25p or 50p

Hare Krishna Parade; on my way to the airport, in the last day, I was so lucky to stumble across a Hare Krishna parade that certainly was linked to the festival that was happening on the City Park. If we consider that the Hungarian language has a very special roots and meaning, that could explain why so many lovely and spiritual people existing in Budapest and Hungary as a whole. Here is a brief video of the parade I saw:

St Stephen's Basilica; as I was walking around the city on such hot day, in particular around the river side, I saw a couple of times the adverts of a classical music concert happening at some sort of Basilica or Cathedral, I thought it would have been nice to attend but it was at 8pm and I guess for sure you'll need to book in advanced, etc. I clean fogot about those adverts as the evening draws in, but t just so happens that, by pure chance, I was at 8pm sharp in front of St Stephen's Basilica wanted to visit, and it just so happens that the concert was about to start! I was so pleased that I went inside and that the Universe granted me a glance to this concert. The repertoire that they played was absolutely amazing

The House of Terror Museum; this building was the location of both the Nazis and Soviets headquarters while they dominated Hungary, it is very sad to see all the pictures of men and women who died at their hands of their own countryman who had a different ideology. Inside the museum there is a soviet tank, model T-54, looks old and dusty but I can assure on its day was, and still is, a very impressive killing machine. The thing that shocked me the most of the visit to this museum was when I was about to leave. I had to take a lift to exit the museum and, the guard close to the lift, told me wait for the lift a few minutes because it was busy. I thought that was a bit hilarious, what sort of crappy lift they had that I had to wait so long for just one floor. The surprise was that, when you enter the lift, automatically a video is shown with a man explaining how the prisoners on that building were executed, the lift goes down very slowly and there is nowhere for you to hide, you can do nothing but to watch that video...the plain true of death. And then, when the door of the lift are finally opened, you are presented with the underground dungeons, where those horrible things described on the video where taking place... very well thought introduction, and chilling indeed

In summary, to my trip of Budapest, I loved the baths a lot, this city of worth to visit more than once... and so I'll be back!

And if you have enjoyed the reading of my article North West Ireland, you might like these other adventures I've had! :)

• November 2021 - Berlin and a Solar Revolution https://www.nazaudy.com/berlin-and-an-astrology-solar-revolution
• October 2019 - Kathmandu, at the base of the mountains https://www.nazaudy.com/kathmandu-at-the-base-of-the-mountains
• December 2018 - Lanzarote, home of Aloe Vera https://www.nazaudy.com/lanzarote-home-of-aloe-vera
• July 2018 - Laos, a butterflies country https://www.nazaudy.com/laos-a-butterflies-country
• February 2014 - Jerusalem and The Finger of God https://www.nazaudy.com/jerusalem-and-the-finger-of-god

References

• https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g1-d8729187-r785982249-Wizz_Air-World.html
• https://bkk.hu/en/tickets-and-passes/prices/travelcards-valid-for-one-or-more-days/budapest-card-for-24-hours.37/
• https://www.spasbudapest.com/baths
• https://ruinbarsbudapest.com/szimpla-kert-ruin-bar/
• https://www.terrorhaza.hu/en/allando-kiallitas/ground_floor/tank-1
• https://fishermansbastion.com/history