Naked Santa

Stock Photo

I stopped at a Kabob restaurant for lunch yesterday and when I went in and said “Hello” in English they had a woman that spoke English come and take my order. Since I was walking around town and have difficulty eating/drinking while walking I sat down and enjoyed my delicious Kebob in the restaurant. When I was done and leaving one of the non English speaking employees behind the counter looked at me and waved while saying “Hello”.

Budapest is the capital city with the most medicinal baths and as such I felt I needed to give one a try. I had talked to several other travelers who had been and they all highly recommended going to relax. There are three main baths and lots of smaller ones around the city. Of the big three two of them were very close to my hostel and I looked up the reviews for those two. The first had reviews that said it was dirty and the staff wasn’t very helpful, the second had mostly positive reviews and so I picked that one, it is called Rudas Baths. I packed up my shorts/swim trunks, flip flops and towel into my backpack and headed out.

When I got there the staff only spoke Hungarian and most of the signs were also in Hungarian. I used my usual hand motions and acting out to purchase my ticket and find the changing room. On my way to the changing room I was handed a tiny white apron with strings attached. See the picture below:



What is this for, I thought to myself and then I saw the other men. I was supposed to strip down naked and put the apron part in the front and leave my butt exposed like a tiny hospital gown. I went into my locker room, it’s a combination of a changing room and a locker and put on my apron and then wrapped myself in my towel and headed out. There was a sign in both English and Hungarian instructing me to shower first and so I entered one of the many showers, closed the door and removed my towel and then took a shower while wearing my apron. When I got out of the shower I loosely hung my towel around me, to cover myself without letting the towel touch me so that it would be dry for later.

I walked through a hallway that was filled with water, I assume to clean your feet and into the large main room. The room was filled with many very old, large, Hungarian men, some of whom were wearing their aprons while others were naked holding their aprons in their hands. In the main room was a large bath in the middle and in each corner was a small bath with a sign designating its temperature, 28, 32, 38 and 42(82 – 108 in Fahrenheit). The large pool in the middle didn’t have a sign but I am going to guess it was around 35. There was a hallway to the right that branched off to two separate hallways. The hallway to the left had a steam room that was 50 degrees. The hallway to the right had a sauna room of 40 degrees and then another of 60 degrees and finally a room of 70 degrees. The 60 degree room was plenty hot enough for me and I couldn’t ever stay in there for more than 5 minutes at a time. In another hallway off the main room was a massage room and a room with a bath that was 10 degrees (50 in Fahrenheit).

Overall the place was very nice and seemed very clean. I went from bath to bath and steam/sauna to the cold pool and then back in the baths. It was really relaxing to just listen to my MP3 player and soak in the water. For reasons that I hope are more than obvious there are no pictures besides the 2 stock photos I found online and the one of my apron.


Outside the Bath House