Europe > Hungary > Budapest > Budapest > Articles > The Baths of Budapest

Aaaaah. Mmmmm. I was in ecstasy. My body felt exquisite, my limbs as loose a rag doll's. My skin was as soft as a Persian carpet. I was indulging in the torrid heat of a thermal bath.

My passion for bathing began with my first visit to Budapest. For 2000 years, the mineral springs of Hungary's capital city, daily spouting 40 million litres of warm mineral water, have been providing its citizens with unrivalled sensual delights. The first public baths, built by the Romans, is now a pile of rubble in a rundown district on the Danube's west bank. When the Turks invaded in 1526, they introduced their steamy stone tubs. Now Budapest has over a dozen public bathhouses, offering thermal, Turkish and mud baths, with a vigorous east european massage thrown in for a few extra florins.

In a manner modelled on Burt Lancaster in the film 'The Swimmer', I set out to travel around Budapest's baths. An American friend was appalled. 'You're kidding,' she said. 'You're going to risk getting in a hot bath with strangers? Just think of those microbes!'

With microbes on the mind, I chose Gellert Hill as my departure point, where Saint Elizabeth had cured lepers in the miracle waters. The Gellert baths were a splendid monument to art nouveau with lion heads gushing murky - hopefully microbe free - water into a small tiled oblong pool. I felt like Cleopatra. But the very last thing I looked was sexy. I had to wear the obligatory bathing cap provided by the baths, an unflattering piece of stretched rubber the colour of a condom.

The attraction of a thermal bath is the sense of wellbeing it gives you on the inside. On the outside, you look as if you're being boiled alive. My skin was an unattractive beetroot, sweat gathered under my eyes, and my toes broke the surface like a row of wrinkled radishes.

But in Budapest, bathing is more than pure indulgence. I wasn't only pool hopping; I was time travelling. Less than a mile along the waterfront, the Rac Baths' octagonal stone pool took me back to the Turkish occupation. For five centuries, the sulphurous water had been recommended for flaking skins and aching joints.

Breaking with Burt Lancaster, I took a tram to Margrit Island, a park stranded in the centre of the Danube, and headed for the 21st century. The island's exclusive, futuristic Thermal Hotel is for those with a serious interest in a water's medicinal qualities. The Thermal - with scrubbed white tiles and stainless steel fittings - exudes hygiene. At 42 degrees, as hot as the Sahara, I felt like an operating instrument being thoroughly sterilised.

I ventured on to the Danube's east bank and clambered aboard a trolleybus bound for City Park. There I found Hungarian family entertainment at its height at the shambly 19th century Szechenyi baths. Around three huge bubbling baths, fathers sipped big brown bottles of beer, children dive bombed, and grandmothers feasted on sticky cinnamon buns. I saw a middle-aged man with a Michelin tyre stomach, a huge moustache and a condom swimming cap plop into the pool with the grace of a giant seal. Just as I was about to join him, he stood quietly in a corner and began to masturbate, erupting into the balmy water. Perhaps my American friend was right after all.

But I didn't go to the baths for their cleansing properties. I went to retreat. In Budapest, the streets are clogged with cars and chatter. But in the baths, everyone's eyes rest easily in the imaginary middle distance, discreetly avoiding each others smouldering bodies. You sit in silence. You release your mind as well as your body. You could be in any bath, in any era, anywhere.

When I came home, I phoned my American friend. 'What's it feel like to be in one of those places?' she said. There was only one way in which I could describe the utterly erotic sensation. 'Aaaaah. Mmmmm.'

Articles

• More from Dea Birkett