The Hungarian Bath

Natalie and I overlooking the (gloomy) Danube, the chapel in the cave, the Gellert Bath, and the polar bear windows into the pool

On Saturday morning, I met Natalie for a day of touring.  Natalie and I were both on the Track team at St. Bens– and have always had a blast when we are together.  She and her boyfriend, Carl were doing a European trip to Vienna, Prague and Budapest, and were nice enough to let me tag along on their Saturday adventures.  They were also with Carl’s sister Sheryl and her boyfriend Mark.  The first thing they wanted to do (since it was raining out) was go to a bath.  SCORE! I hadn’t been yet – but I also didn’t have my swimsuit with me… dang.  Natalie and I ran back to my hostel for a quick 10 minute detour to grab my suit– and over an hour later met them at the Gellert baths.  We tried to take a bus, but it didn’t cross the river, and then we hopped in a taxi with some Italians who were heading to the bath too.  Interesting times here in Budapest.  At the bath the fun continued.  The Hungarians aren’t known for their forthrightness.  We had to poke our way through the whole process not knowing if what we were doing was right or not – but hey, after Istanbul – I could do anything.  Somehow we ended up in just an area with lockers, no real changing room or anything, but whatever- we went with the flow.  As we were trying to find our way to the pool – we walked through a hallway that had windows looking up into the pool rendering each swimmer a polar bear on display in the Budapest zoo.  You could look through the windows and see the torso of random swimmers go past- it was quite interesting (see the pictures).  When we finally got to the pool, it was cold- wasn’t this a thermal bath?!  Little did I know that it was only the first of many pools I’d be in…  There was the cooler lap pool – the warm hot tub on the other end of the main room, and when we separated into boys and girls, there were two more pools at 36 and 38 degrees Celsius – then there was a plunge pool (super cold) and then a sauna.  The sauna was neat, but WAY too hot for me.  The pools were nice and it was generally a refreshing relaxing way to start our day.  At about noon we left the baths and headed to eat lunch at the Gellert Hotel.  This hotel and bath is one of the most famous in Budapest, so it was quite a nice treat.  They all tried Hungarian food –the paprika palacsinta, red beet rice, guylash- it was truly Hungarian.