szechenyi.thermal.bath

i am actually feeling grumpy right now... besides the fact that i am not really feeling fit (neither am i sick) just at the border line and was woke up twice by his alarm and couldn't go back to sleep again, by the time i dossed off and  woke up, it's way too late to drive to work and my head is bouncing again...  so i looked at my appointments and shift everything to tomorrow. not my day but these things happened...  what i really want now is to soak into a hot spring water and let the heat of the thermal water rejuvenate my body.  since it is not possible to get near to anything like that besides the sauna and steam bath at my gym facility, why not travel back again to my never finish summer travel story?  at least back then it is warm and i am soaking in a hot thermal bath in budapest.

sometime in mid august

it’s almost late afternoon, you are according to plan, you arrive here to rest your sore feet and tired body.  you have walked all the way from andrassay út to here. 

you found the thermal bath complex, you pay and you enter.  this building is even more humongous than gillert thermal bath that you been to a day before. 

no one speak english here, no english instruction either.  you are frustrated because the attendant doesn’t understand you.  you don’t know how things work here; there is no explanation in english. 

but you must admit this place is beautiful, a gem consider this being a swimming pool complex or thermal bath complex. 

you waste time in finding how things operate.  you feel like you are in some sort of communist chamber and under passage and wish you could figure out the hungarian language which is not latin or germanic based.  you are in the tower of babel, and lost in translation. 

you start with the indoor pools, what is called a mud pool is not a pool in murky mud but a pool with a higher content of medicinal water (with strong smell).  I love the thermal bath, it relaxes you especially after a long walk today.  there are about 15 different pools, you are spoilt of choice, you  just hop in and out from one to another, with different temperatures.  the 80 celcius degree sauna also helps release the sweat and you feel really good.  despite the fact that you were not at ease at first, but now you beginning to feel relax.  you jump into a 20 celcius pool after the sauna, and feel your both feet numb and the open pores close immediately, you couldn’t get your whole body into the 20c pool so you switch to a 38c pool and you feel so much better. by now your foot sore, muscle ache has gone with the wind thermal water.

when the indoor pool and complex closed, you go to the outdoor pool, the air is quite fresh but the thermal water keeps you warm. you stay until past 7.30pm, you witness the light up view of szechenyi . the open air pools embraced by the wings of this beautiful old building, the classical roman pool halls and the cavernous sauna. 

you return to the gas chamber like room, take your shower, blow dry your hair and ready to explore this part of the city by night.

you walk out the thermal bath complex, the building is illuminated by now and you still find it amazing that you actually swam in places like this, a fairy tale or a fantasy place.... 

and in reality you are now in cold december with temperature of -2c out there and not feeling well yet without a thermal bath...