I Like Big Tubs and I Cannot Lie

With Vishnu temporarily repaired and teaching done for the weekend, we could loosen up, relax, and start to find out what it means to be Hungarian and what better way to do that than by taking a nice warm beer bath. Not a regular bath with mugs of beer on the side, as Lowri naively believed when I told her what I’d booked, but a bath filled with all the ingredients needed to brew a hoppy beverage (with mugs of beer on the side). If any doubt were needed as to the contents of our tub, the cheerful fellow responsible for filling it decided to toss in a few more mugs of Special Brew while we were distracted using the loofah.

While the supposed medicinal qualities and benefits of said experience weren’t immediately noticeable, the stench was. A cross between a wet spaniel and an alcoholic’s trousers, it wasn’t the pleasantest of aromas although each free glass of beer did take the edge off. After an hour of sipping and scrubbing we were even filthier than when we had started although, fortunately for everyone within noseshot, Budapest’s most iconic thermal bath was just around the corner.

For a country that boasts more than thirteen hundred thermal springs, with one hundred and twenty-three in the capital alone, Széchenyi Baths are undoubtedly the most impressive. The showpiece in the place known as the City of Spas, it comprises several neo-baroque buildings that form a complex surrounding Europe’s largest medicinal bath. On a clear and cold day such as we had, the exquisitely azure sky perfectly contrasted with the prominent golden walls of the bath house creating a setting straight from a Victorian novel, that’s if you ignore the selfie sticks and TikTok artistes. With the outside temperature a touch above freezing, one was required to sprint from the changing rooms without tripping on a forgotten flip-flop or slipping on the incredibly slick slabs to reach the balmy pools before catching hypothermia. With this successfully achieved we then kicked back and unwound in peace, or we would have done were it not for several crying babies and the odd elbow in the face from a nearby bather.

Our next stop is, unquestionably, one of the most magnificent parliament buildings on earth. Unfortunately, it’s currently occupied by hard-line right-wing knobhead although that appears to be the norm these days. Not only is the neo-gothic construction known as the Országház absolutely massive, Hungary’s largest building since its completion in 1902, but it is also, more impressively, a world wonder in the epic game of Civilization VI. Despite explaining this fascinating point to Lowri, it didn’t receive the awe I was expecting. Located on the shore of the great Danube, it’s also just a short amble from the poignant ‘shoe memorial’ placed in the memory of the Jewish people who were shot there by a fascist militia during the Second World War, their bodies pushed into the river with only their footwear left ashore.

The following day was a far murkier affair as we set our sights on exploring the Buda side of the river having spent the previous in Pest. Fisherman’s Bastion, which sits atop a hill close to the city’s castle, was the highlight with its high walls and white-stone turrets which, upon climbing to the top of, offer spectacular views of the winding river and indeed most of the capital. Given its name due to the number of fishermen that would defend it during wartime, or perhaps because it used to host a bustling fish market, it is one of the most well-known sites in Budapest and has been a part of UNESCO since 1987.

Our last act in Hungary was a hungry one as we couldn’t depart without one last lángos, this time topped with the classic combination of cheese and onion. Filling though it was, an error was made by purchasing it in the most touristy square of the most touristy part of the city, parting with double-digit Euros for the culinary privilege. Having had enough deep-fried flatbreads to last at least two weeks we returned to the road heading in a northerly direction. After an evening in the border city of Esztergom, we crossed the Danube once more into our penultimate nation of the trip.

J