News

It's a chilly 10 Celsius and the rain is settling in deep in the heart of Transdanubia in western Hungary. Mingling in the steam rising off Lake Heviz is a portly gentleman wearing a bathing cap with the ear flaps flipped up and a red rubber ring tucked under his arms, oblivious to the weather.

He reads a magazine covered with plastic and clipped to a floating lectern in front of him, while elsewhere, in this weird and steamy cauldron to the west of Lake Balaton, a group of rubber-ringed onlookers watch two men plot their strategies on a floating chessboard.

The Earth's crust is thin in the Carpathian basin where Hungary is situated, allowing thermal springs to easily find their way to the surface. A few of them joined forces to create Lake Heviz, spewing forth 60 million litres of warm, mineral-laden water every day. At almost five hectares, it is the largest thermal lake in Europe and second-largest in the world.

Still, from a Western perspective, it wasn't much of a day for a swim on a cool November day last fall. But that misses the point entirely. Lake Heviz is but one of many public baths across the country and one comes here to take the waters (recommended for rheumatic, locomotor and inflammatory ailments), as Hungarians, Turks, Romans and Celts have done here for centuries. And that's where the inner tubes come in: to maximize the therapeutic effect, by minimizing the effort required to stay afloat.

Other than lily pads that line the shore, few other living forms are sustainable in Lake Heviz due to the slightly radioactive mud lake bed. The lake is renewed daily by hot and cold mineral springs emanating from a cave 37 metres below. The resulting mix is a very civilized surface temperature of about 29 C.

Consequently, miserable weather is almost irrelevant at Lake Heviz, and becomes entirely so inside the large pavilion built over the middle of the lake where the air temperature is controlled, the water is just a few degrees warmer, and guests drift and linger.

The spa and surrounding park land was developed by Count Gyorgy Festetics from nearby Keszthely about 200 years ago for the amusement of his guests and friends who found the waters to have curative properties. After the Second World War, the entire area around Lake Balaton became an experiment in social tourism under Communism, when many private villas were expropriated and morphed into holiday camps for the workers. Today, in the summer months, the region is the most-visited area in the country after Budapest, three hours away by train.

But there are plenty of diversions for bathers in Hungary's capital city too. The Danube River divides modern Budapest into the former towns of Buda on the west and Pest on the east. Slightly north on the Buda side is the site of the original Roman settlement of Aquincum, which meant plentiful waters, referring to the more than 123 thermal springs that surface in the surrounding area. The Romans exploited the resource for under-floor heating. They also established at least 11 known baths.

The Romans regarded regular bathing as fundamental to a person's mental well-being, a sentiment that continues in Budapest today, where locals are spotted toting towels and bathing suits on their way to public pools.

The best known and most spectacular bathhouse in Budapest is attached to the Gellert Hotel, worth a visit just to view its art nouveau interior with spiralling columns, water-spouting lions and a steel and glass dome overhead.

Outdoors is a sunbathing area and the wave pool, a popular novelty in this landlocked country, as well as a thermal pool where jets of warm, bubbly mineral water massage you into a mass of jellied submission. Also available are steam baths and the requisite treatments and massage therapies.

Across town on the Pest side of the city, the yellow metro line (the oldest metro in Europe where passengers travel in small, wood-trimmed cars), stops at Szechenyi Furdo, one of the largest and most popular public spas in the city. Recently renovated in the middle of a park and a 10 minute stroll from the Fine Arts Museum at Heroes Square, it is truly a spa for the people. The grand neo-baroque structure contains all the facilities to be expected, including an indoor thermal pool, numerous steam baths and massage services.

Outside is a large rectangular pool (maintained at 27 C), flanked by two semi-circular pools. The warmer and quieter of these is a melting 38 C where chess-playing and reading from floating lecterns is de rigueur. In the centre, a high-volume waterfall will pummel the last remaining knots of tension out of your neck and shoulders.

A carnival-like atmosphere pervades a thermal pool at the other end, where the water is a more temperate 34 C, and exhilarated patrons hoot and squeal as they're swirled around by subsurface jets.

On Margit Island in the middle of the Danube is another thermal spa in a city park setting, distinguished primarily due to the size of its vast swimming pool and segregated nude sunbathing decks. Although the thermal pools at the Palatinus are just as relaxing as elsewhere, the experience is less memorable than in the older bathhouses, partly because of the table tennis and pool tables, trampolines and numerous snack bars.

As a reminder of Hungary's history of invasions, there is a tradition of Turkish baths as well in Budapest. The best known of these are the Rudas, Kiraly and Rac baths, all with splendid examples of Ottoman architecture, and segregated alternating days for men and women. Light is filtered through small openings in the domed ceiling at the Rudas, and through stained glass windows at the Kiraly, shading both with a traditional ambiance of semi-darkness.

The Turkish treatment emphasizes soaking in hot and cold baths for an invigorating contrast followed up with a slathering in oil and an energetic massage by Hagrid-size people or by less interactive steam and sauna baths.

The notoriously brusque attendants in these establishments are a hangover from the Communist days. But such attitudes are becoming a thing of the past, especially among the younger employees. Since the demise of communism in 1989, Hungarians have reopened the doors of their country to the West aiming to restore Budapest's rightful title as pearl of the Danube.

Malev has four non-stop flights between Toronto and Budapest each week during the summer. KLM, British Airways and Lufthansa all fly into Budapest. Lake Heviz Thermal Spa is open year round. Admission is about $4; rubber ring rental $2. If you want to avoid the touristy town of Lake Heviz, stay in beautiful Keszthely, 8 kilometres to the south. Local buses run to Lake Heviz every half hour. In Budapest, entrance to Szechenyi Furdo is around $8. The Gellert Spa can be reached by tram from Deak Square. Entrance is $10.