Winter bathing

Light snow has fallen once or twice and jagged ice leisures along the Danube, but there is occasion for bikinis and speedos no matter the weather, and that is the hot baths of Budapest. At the Széchenyi Fürdő in City Park, three baths lie side by side for Goldilocks to test, although in winter I suggest beginning with the hottest (and densest) and spending the rest of the time in the just-right pool. Everywhere are patches of activity: older men play chess on water-proof mats at the edges; a mother helps her daughter swim with arm floaties and swim cap; couples … do couple things; three young men drink beer on the steps. But most just stand and soak, proving the place to be little more than a glorified Jacuzzi.

I argue, though, there is more to the fürdő that justifies more than a two-hour visit. Something like cobblestone surrounds the pools, enclosed in a coliseum-like courtyard open to the sky. There is a nude statue here, a fountain there. Above the four-foot-high water, steam rises 100 feet into the air and softens the lighting, which glows through and tints the fog. The steam passes in and out, sometimes walling the person 10 feet away, other times exposing the person halfway across the pool. We couldn’t determine how much of the fürdő relied on the hot springs that make it famous, and how much man had to intervene. But like beaches in summer, the fürdő is a place I’d like to stay all day reading or sleeping; the lights after sundown aren’t ideal for reading, but at all times the warmth can lull you to sleep.