The Thermal Baths

Friday, July 25, 2014--Budapest

This was our last full day in Budapest.  During the morning hours, we visited the Kisceli Museum, a small, but nice place on a hilltop in suburban Budapest.  We had some problems finding it, because the maps either do not show that far out or only show major streets.  But with the help of a woman and the map on her cell phone, we got there.

(Speaking of cell phone maps, I was surprised during my planning process to find that the maps of cities in Hungary are not downloadable for offline use.  I've downloaded maps for cities in Slovakia and the Czech Republic for this trip.  Wonder why the cities in Hungary aren't available?)

The museum has some nice paintings by Hungarian artists.  And it has an interesting section with old ornaments used outside shops to identify their type of business--an umbrella sculpture for the umbrella maker/seller, a boot sculpture for the bootmaker/seller, etc.  Beside each hanging ornament, they had a photo of the old shop with it hanging in front.

We had also hoped to see the Vasarely Museum in the same area, but we failed to find it.  We walked in a huge circle following directions that people told us, and still we couldn't find it.  And no one seemed to even recognize the name Vasarely who was from Hungary and became as famous as Andy Warhol.  Anyway, I like Vasarely's paintings, and I'm sorry we never found the museum.

Around 2:30, we went to the Lukacs Thermal Baths, one of many large thermal bathing complexes in Budapest.  It was a nice facility with large pools for swimming in lanes or playing, smaller pools with various water temperatures, a Finnish sauna and ice bath, and the one pool that had all kinds of features such as bubbling reclining beds, shoulder massage spouts, bubbling holes from the bottom of the pool, a lazy river flowing fast enough to be fun.  We spent most of our time in this latter pool and in the sauna.

It was interesting to observe the people, especially the women who monopolized the bubbling holes in the floor of the pool.  It was quite obvious that they were getting pleasure from the strong air currents bubbling up under their bodies.

I spent some time speaking with an Indian man who was vacationing here, too.  Actually, he is of Indian descent, but he was born in Austria, grew up there, and lives and works there now.  He was here with a friend of the family and the friend's fiance.  He had visited San Antonio once with a friend who was a student in Austin.

In the evening, we walked around the area near our apartment just watching people sitting at sidewalk cafes and having drinks or eating.  We are rather tired from these first few days mainly because we still haven't gotten enough sleep to make up for the lost night of sleep when we flew across the Atlantic.