The Best Place to Take a Bath

Budapest, Hungary would put your best bathing experience to shame. Even better than a hot, bubbling jaccuzzi, surrounded by flaming scented candles and quiet music, are the Budapest bath-houses. This was not originally on our Europe itinerary, but after a recommendation from a friend, I googled it and decided we had to go there. It helped that Budapest was on the way from Krakow to Croatia, so no detour needed there.

Unfortunately, the weather was not the greatest when we were there, but we made the most of it. We spent most of our time soaking up the mineral waters of the bath houses. After hiking in the Alps, biking, hiking, and walking constantly in Austria, and walking for 3 days in Krakow, we were ready for a little relaxation and made the most of it in our time in Budapest. 

Over the course of 2 days in Budapest, we probably spent about 7 hours in two different bath-houses. When we got to Budapest, we walked 30 minutes to our hostel, but when we got there, the guy who was working the "front desk" said there had been a mistake with the bookings. I say "front desk" because this hostel was basically somebody's apartment where they just rented out the rooms. This is pretty common in Eastern Europe, but it was weird to get used to. On the plus side, it's cheap. He apologized that he had to upgrade our room to the private double bed with our own bathroom instead of the mixed 6-bed dorm we had booked. Cath and I had no problem with that. It was like the honeymoon suite of a low-cost Hungarian hostel. The beauty was that it only cost us 50 euro for both of us for 3 nights. So cheap!

As I said before, the weather was not fantastic, so we spent most of our bath time in the warm thermal baths to heat up. The first bathhouse we went to was the biggest one in Budapest. It had 3 larger pools outside, with old men playing chess and jets that spurted up sporadically. The were also a whole bunch of baths inside, ranging from 8-40 degree water. I tried going into the cold plunge 8 degree pool for after the saunas, but made it to my waist and chickened out. It was way too cold! The thermal mineral water was so relaxing, and you just feel so clean after it.

Cath and I under water

Catherine's digital camera is waterproof, so naturally we took it to the baths with us and got some candid underwater photos, like this beauty above....

Wave Pool at bath house #2

The second bathhouse we went to had a wave pool outside which was awesome, but it also had separate men's and women's sections inside. Catherine was excited to go in those, but I was a little more wary. I know what "women only" means - there's a good chance people will be naked in there! Europeans have no shame like North Americans do when it comes to stripping down in public. Thankfully, most people chose to keep their tops on in the female section. By the end of the whole trip in Europe, I definitely got more used to seeing people "bare all" in public - the beaches of Croatia will do that to you.

Capturing the sunset along the Danube

Budapest Parliament building

We took a free walking tour in Budapest as well, which ended with a large portion of the group going out for a cheap Hungarian lunch together. It was delicious, and only a couple bucks. I'm trying to remember the name of the restaurant (it was more of a cafeteria), I'm sure I'll think of it later, but for some cheap, authentic food, it is a great find. On our last night in Budapest we watched the sunset on the famous Danube river.

Great city!

Next it's off to our adventures in Croatia!!