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Published: January 2nd 2012
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Budapest, as you may know, is also known as the City Of Spa's (thermal baths rather than discount supermarkets). I'm not sure how well known this title is, because to be honest, it sounds rather like when someone you knew at school introduces themselves with a new nickname the first time you see them after university - "No, it's not Peter anymore, everyone calls me 'Scorpion' now". But either way, that's what the signs say here.
Budapest is one of the only cities, so people tell me, to have been built on a natural thermal spring and as a result, the spas are everywhere. A lot are combined with swimming pools and hotels and things , but the best feature of some is that they have outdoor parts - ok in the summer, but in the winter you'll never feel more alive!
My favourite is up towards Heroes Square and is called the Szechenyi Baths. There is a normal indoor bit that smells a bit funny and feels like your average swimming baths, then you go outside and it transforms into something that looks like a postcard. At the moment, when you go outside, there's so much steam coming
from the 37 degree water that you can't really see it which somehow gives it a mysterious feel too, like you're walking through the doors on Stars In Their Eyes or something.
Two things to bear in mind, however, are that some spas have male and female sections for different days which allows for there to be some nakedness, should that be the direction you wish to go in. The problem is, that on the non-segregated days some people (mainly Elderly Italian men in my experience) either aren't aware of the change or are just so militantly opposed to the idea of wearing clothes indoors that they just carry on regardless, meaning that sometimes unsuspecting women are greeting by a small number of old, naked men enjoying the hot water, or, and this is arguably worse, rather than being naked, they wear these kind of transparent loincloths which have the same effect on a man's penis as pushing your face up against a window does on your nose. A shock, if you're not expecting it, either way.
The other thing that's worth bearing in mind, is that the insides of the spas, and this goes for more or
less everything in the city, are so badly signposted, even in Hungarian, that they feel like a labyrinth. This is even more true in the Metro stations where sometimes they have signs in a variety of languages, sometimes they don't, sometimes they are helpfully colour-coded, round the next corner this will stop, or least the colour system will have changed. I've come to the conclusion that this is just down to the Hungarian's unusual, Germanic sense of humour, but it has also led to the realisation that the reason the spas are always 80% older people, is not because of the health giving properties of the water, it's actually more like a hostage situation where they simply can't find their way out.
This all kind of ties in with the fact that, in general here, the customer service is laughably bad. It is so bad that sometimes it's almost as though they're daring you to say something to them. I have taken to just really enjoying it, largely because to me, it almost takes the form of a show. When other people are being served you get to watch the fun and the glint in the waiter's eye that
plays the role of a wink or a nod telling you you're in on the joke, and when you're being served, you just take the hit and play along.
Nowhere is this elaborate service show more obvious than in a brilliant place called the 'For Sale' bar, up near the Liberty Bridge. The three best things about the place are that you get a huge bowl of monkey nuts on every table (you also get to throw the empty shells on the floor, which is way more liberating than you'd imagine), the roof is very low and everything's made of wood giving it a really cosy feel, and the food portions are massive. Really massive. And this from someone who once ate a 32oz steak and then had cheesecake for pudding*. Also, the walls of the bar are covered with scraps of paper, drawings, train tickets or anything else that can be easily attached with a pin. The idea is that everyone who goes in should leave some kind of memento and it gives the place a lovely, homely atmosphere, and also makes it feel almost alive and like it evolves and changes over time. All of this general
lovliness contrasts fantastically with the attitude of the staff which generally involves them treating all the customers so rudely that you reach the point of thinking it's either one big game of oneupmanship between them or that, without knowing it, you insulted one of their Mums and this is their response. Either way, I love it, in much the same way as I prefer the cold disdainful attitude of a cat to the naive, irritating, neediness of a dog - two things that probably say more about my own personality than anything else. But, whether you agree or not, it's certainly no less socially comfortable to be there than it is to have a circle of Italians in see-through pants smiling and waving at you.
Pura Vida
Dave
*still my proudest achievement.
*one of the proudest achievements of my life.
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Tee Jay
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You are so spot on about signage issues in Hungary. And your assessment of the spas being like a labyrinth is totally true. While I did not visit the Szechenyi Baths, I did visit Gellert and it probably took us at least an hour to pay for our tickets, rent a towel, figure out how to use the lockers, and actually find where we were supposed to go. Love the post; keep them coming. Happy New Year.