Szechenyi baths Budapest

 





Szechenyi baths

Szechenyi baths Budapest, local people usually call it “Szecska”.

Széchenyi baths Budapest
How to get there ?

The M1 underground has a dedicated station for the Szechenyi bath. The M1 (small yellow ancient looking cars) underground comes from Vörösmarty / Deak ter (square) direction. The Szechenyi baths is located in the Varosliget City Park, behind the Heroes square.

Facing the statues from the square, must cross the bridge at right side behind, next to the Ice skating ring, and the Varosliget lake, the Bath is located at the left side of the road behind a grassy area, approximately 200m from the road/bridge.

The bath has several entrances at different sides of the building. This is important because at some entrances must leave the spa earlier. The main entrance is from the Allatkerti (Zoo) road. If we come from the Bridge it is behind the bath building.

Pools

The thermal pool in the Szechenyi is a real pleasure in winter, perhaps little warm for some people in summer. It has several water massages available in the pool, which is very nice. Usually people likes to play chess here.

The Szechenyi baths has three external and lots of (18) internal pools with water temperatures varies between 20 to 40 degree celsius (68-104 degree in Fahrenheit). A Thermal pool, a 50m long swimming pool, and an adventure pool with lazy river and several other fancy can be found outside, inside all kinds of sitting pools can be found with different water temperatures.

The bath has a rich thermal water supply which comes to the surface from more than 1000m depth, and it supplies three Budapest thermal baths totally (apart from the Szechenyi baths it supplies the Dagaly and the Dandar smaller baths) and helps with the heating of the nearby zoo and plant garden as well.

The Szechenyi baths has several halls where we can enter, if we want to stay until 22h, the main entrance facing the road where the zoo can be found is the appropriate one.

The historical buildings gives the bath a unique atmosphere. The Szechenyi has been executed in 1913 in Neo-baroque style according to the plans of Gyozo Czigler.

The external 50m swimming pool is one of the finest swimming pool in Budapest, the water is not too deep, the usage of swimming cup is obligatory. Swimming cup is available at the bath for 1000 Huf / pcs (2014). From 6h to 8h in the morning a swimming ticket is available for less money.

The adventure pool with the the lazy river in the center. In the adventure pools water massage is available at several places (at the bottom, and sides of the pool) in different times as well as in the thermal pool. This massage has different velocity some of them stronger others are not so strong. This gives great pleasure, and helps relaxation.

The internal pools are also very nice, architecturally well formed. There are smaller and bigger ones, with all kinds of temperature between 20 and 40 degree of celsius.

There are several huge saunas, steam cabins, and infra cabin are available in the bath to fulfill the need and likes of everybody.

Architecture

There is a lot of fine detail in the Architecture here. There are beautiful paintings, statues can be found there.

The entrance hall ceiling has been formed with great attention to detail.

Szechenyi baths

The Szechenyi baths can be found in the Budapest city park. There are two ways to get there from the Heroes sqare: Behind the Heroes square, cross the bridge little right between the Ice-skating ring and Citypark lake, and the bath is can be found at left side behind the Park. This is the shorter way, other way is left side all along the Allatkert ring road, pass the zoo, the Circus and go all around up to the Bath entrance.

The Szechenyi spa is one of the most popular place in Budapest. At it’s current price, most local people doesn’t go here regularly, but is a very highly regarding place, very nice to rest a bit, discuss politics, life in general, what happened nowadays kinds of issues. Playing chess in the pool is also very popular here.

Well and thermal water of the Szechenyi bath Budapest

The thermal water coming from more than 1000m depth, and this well supply two other Budapest spas as well (Dagaly and Dandar namely). From the well 6000 m3 water coming up to the surface every day. The temperature of the thermal water is 77 Celsius. The water has lots of minerals in it: 1,7-1,8 g/l totally. Chlorid, Bromid, Iodide, Fluorite, Sulfate, Carbohydrate can be found in the water together with: Natrium, Calzium, Magnesium, Lithium, Kalium and several acids as well. The well was dugged in 1938, fortunately not damaged totally in the World War II. The cold water coming from several (6) separate wells here.

History of the Szechenyi bath Budapest

The spa was originally designed by Gyozo Czigler. Czigler was a University teacher at the Budapest Technical University. The construction of the bath has started in 1909, although there were discussion of the plans since 1884. Unfortunately Czigler died before the bath was built, but lived when the municipality decided to start the construction, he commissioned his deputy Ede Dvorak to take care of the process. At that time the Bath was not looked like it is looking at now. Parts of the Building was added later according to the plans of Imre Francsek.

Location:

City park end of Andrassy road, 1146 Budapest Allatkerti korut 9-11.

Opening hours:

Every day 6-22h, need to check at bigger holidays like Christmas, New Years Eve, mostly open.

No of pools:

21 pools totally, 3 open air pools, 18 internal covered pools

Services

some of them not included in the ticket: gym, lazy rivers, underwater massage, steam, sauna, infra cabins, foot care, thai massage, fish pedicure (very interesting small fishes removes the old, dead skin parts from the foot, feels funny), cosmetics, catering services

Entrance fee:

appr. 4600 HUF /4800 HUF (app 13-17 EUR or 18-22 USD) weekends with cabins, 4100 / 4300 HUF with warderobes (2013)

How to get there:

by public transport from Deak or Vorosmarty square with the metro line No 1 (ancient looking yellow cars, the first continental metro line in Europe from 1896, obviously the cars are not the original ones) at station Szechenyi furdo

Website: official website

Nighttime bath

Several times a year nighttime bath is possible here. The Night of Spas and Cinetrip (02.08 (August) 2014 and 09.08 (August) 2014) are the times when it is possible.