Tuesday, 25th December, 2018
We spent Christmas Day the Szecheniyi (say-chen-ee) way! Most everything is closed in Budapest on Christmas except for the turkish baths. It's a tradition for families (and tourists) to spend their day celebrating at the baths. The Szecheniyi baths are the largest medicinal baths in Europe. The water in the baths is pumped in from two thermal hot springs near the area. The yellow building that houses the baths is huge.
There are multiple entrances and of course Mark and I went in one, two, three before we finally got it right. We made a reservation online to "skip the line" but like most things in Europe we found out there's a "line" to "skip the line". 😆The baths were incredibly crowded. The first one we got in was not my idea of warm. Surely this many people didn't enjoy sitting in somewhat warm tubs, right? I decided to try my luck with another bath and was relieved. This bath felt much warmer. I snuggled up to the side and let myself relax in the warm, sulfur tub. Although we were very much enjoying the temperature of this bath we figured we had to see what else Szecheniyi had to offer so we went exploring for another tub. We found one that only had 3 or 4 people in it so I dipped my toe in only to realize that it was a "cold" tub. No thank you! We kept moving and found that there were multiple HUGE tubs outside. Did we really want to go outside in the cold to get in the baths? When in Budapest, right? So we did. We ran. Really, really fast. I hopped in and while it was warmer than the air outside it was definitely not a "hot" tub. 😞I did my part and indulged in the human made whirlpool that was happening in one of the smaller sections of the bath and I even swam around with Mark in the big pool for a bit. But 15 minutes is 15 minutes and at the end of that time I was ready to head back inside. I braced myself for the frigid air and took off in a sprint for the bathhouse. We entered on the opposite side from where we had exited so into a new pool I went. This one felt even warmer and was much less crowded. I liked it very much. We spent the remainder of our time between the two pools in these rooms. In order to get to the cafeteria we had to wander through the entire bathhouse with bare feet and wet towels. We enjoyed overpriced cafeteria food and irish coffees to help us warm up before heading to the showers. Since the shower experience at our hostel was subpar we decided to indulge in the hot water showers at the baths which were fantastic.
To finish off our day we went on a beer tasting cruise down the River Danube. We walked to the meeting point where there were hundreds of people. They then separated us by cruise type and walked us to the docking area. It was incredibly windy and very, very cold. We boarded our boat and ended up sitting next to a young couple from Estonia. We enjoyed lit up river views, traditional gypsy music from a live quartet, craft beers and good conversation from the couple at our table.
The boat was lovely and it was a great way to see the lights of the city for Christmas. The only downside was that the bathroom was on the outside deck of the boat. Brrrr! After our boat beers were done we went to a traditional Budapest-ian restaurant with our new friends for Christmas dinner and a few more drinks.
It was a lovely way to spend our first Christmas together as a Mr. and Mrs 😘
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