Monday, August 22, 2011

Beautiful Budapest.

Széchenyi Spa


Saturday was an especially good day for Lee and me as we managed to sneak off by ourselves to a natural thermal spa just within walking distance of our apartment.
Charlotte and Maisy were being entertained by Joanna and Georgina. 
Twins of our girls, just add 10 years.








Our apartment for the 4 days we stayed in Budapest was on Rakoczi Utca. It was undoubtably built during the communist period and seems to have survived without a scrap of maintenance since. The lift ride down the 3 floors was always a bit of a gamble. After clunking the doors shut, there was no light to see the button you needed to press for the ground floor. Feeling in the dark for the bottom button you knew if you got it right when the lift just suddenly dropped and shuddered.
So off we went winding our way through the streets of the everyday people that lived in the city. I will say that the whole place needs a pressure wash to give the buildings back their colour and to get rid of the often smell of urine. However, not to let that sway us we really thought Budapest was very charming and pretty (especially at night).

















The thermal spa was quite grand and lavish with 3 very large pools outside, from 30 to 38 degrees with one of them having jacuzzi like bubbles all around, and about another 11 inside with various temperatures and cloudy waters. They get the water from 1246m underground and pump it through the entire complex.

The architecture of the surrounding building is beautiful in about the same yellow colour as our house back at DY with black domed roofs and arched windows. We sat in the outside pool for an hour sipping cool beverages and enjoying the sun and the lazy heat.





Paul

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