I visited the Rudas baths last week and wanted to give a final report on how it all turned out. The baths were constructed by the Turks when they occupied Budapest 450-years ago. They take advantage of thermal springs that occur naturally on the Buda side of the river. The complex of buildings is located just over the Erzsebat Hid (Elizabeth Bridge) from central Pest (pronounced Pesht). The complex was completely renovated a few years ago in partnership with the local preservation authorities who made sure any historic significance was not lost. Aside from being men-only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the Rudas is now open to women only on Tuesdays and mixed genders on weekends (swim suites required).
I went with my travel buddy on Monday, and were able to speak English with the attendant behind a window just as we entered the lobby. We told her what we wanted (there is a menu of options such as baths, massages, pool, etc) and in our case we just wanted the basic package which cost 2,400 forints (Hungarian money) which is about $10 American dollars. That gave us full-day access to a changing cabin and the original Turkish hot baths that the Rudas is famous for. We were given watch bands with an electric devise that keyed us in to our cabins and the baths.
We took a right down a hallway and through a turnstile, and an attendant asked us to grab a kind of gauzy apron on our way into the changing area. All the wooden locker cabins are new, and you put your "watch" up against a central reading unit that assigns free cabins to you. All the lockers on the main floor were taken (it was about 3pm when we got there and really crowded) so an older gentlemen told us to go to the lower level to find a space there, which we did.
We used our watches to be assigned a cabin and the watch also unlocked the changing cabin. We were the only ones with access to our cabins so our passports and money were safe. In the cabin we took everything off and tied the gauzy apron around ourselves to cover our dicks. Asses were left open for the world to see.
We followed the flow of non-wet guys to the bath area, taking a quick shower before going into the bath area. Of course, getting wet immediately made our aprons see through...but so was everyone else's apron so it was easy to push through that. We passed through a hallway and waded through a foot-pool of disinfectant (a good thing).
Then we entered the bathing area...which is octagonal in plan. In the center is a large pool about 20 feet across. Around it are fat pillars joined by Gothic arches that in turn support a high stone dome. The dome has small stained glass portholes that admit sunlight that shoot down through the steam to the surface of the water. Around the central pool are four smaller pools in each corner, all with water coming out of a fountain and lit from below making wavy reflections on the ceiling. The whole space is filled with steam and smells faintly of sulfur from the thermal springs...it was like nothing I've ever experienced before.
Men are everywhere, perhaps 30 in the pool lounging around the edges mainly, chatting with others in low tones. The surrounding baths have maybe 5-10 guys in each, also lounging. Other guys are padding around between baths or headed to the sauna or steam rooms located through a side arch. All of them have aprons on, but nothing was left to the imagination on what the aprons had behind them.
We began testing each of the side baths with our foot like Goldilocks. The coldest one was about 80F (27c) and the hottest was close to 110F (40c). It was an extremely cold day in Budapest and my buddy and I were frozen solid, so the hottest bath was the first we waded in to.
And waded in we did...very carefully! The water felt hotter as I got deeper, and I could only get in waist deep before needing to take a pause. Once I got all the way in shoulders deep it felt so good! Hot water has a way of electrifying your body...plus it felt amazing to warm up in contrast to feeling so cold earlier.
I moved to the far-side of the bath so that my back was against the wall. Loose bricks on the floor of the five foot deep bath let in more hot ground water and even a few sulfur bubbles. With my back against the wall I could try to make sense of what was going on around me.
The men there were mixed. I'd guess 30% were older than 60 that were probably using the baths to help ease medical ailments such as arthritis. Perhaps 40% were guys between the ages of 40 and 60 and they seemed to be there for social purposes or just to lounge. Another 20% were guys between the ages of 30 and 40 and the last 10% under 30. Some of them did occasional chin ups and push ups between the baths.
All kinds of body types were represented. A majority were fairly heavy, but perhaps 10% had pretty amazing bodies that probably caused my eyebrows to raise (yes just eyebrows). Lots of younger guys came with friends and they laughed and chattered away as they bobbed shoulders deep in the water. After about 5 minutes in the hottest bath, we joined the main central bath which was the second hottest. It was the largest and most popular, perfect for chatting or relaxing. Again, any awkwardness felt by emerging from the bath with a see-through wet little gauze loin cloth was deflated by everyone else having the same cloth. Out of the whole crowd, maybe five guys wore double aprons either front and back or doubled up so that the apron was less opaque when wet. I saw three guys wear their underwear into the water. I didn't want to be that American who sought to rewrite 450 years of bath etiquette, so I didn't even think to wear boxer briefs into the pool.
The real use of the apron is not for modesty but for sanitation, as we found out when we went into the sauna where you flip the apron around and sit on it. We did a little sauna time where a younger kid sat down next to me and started pulling on his dick and nervously looking around. I guess he was looking for some action but everyone seemed to ignore him. We eventually left boner-boy and continued pool hopping from cooler to hotter water for the next hour. When I was in the main pool I guess I looked at a good-looking guy (his face not his dick!) too long and he got a bit cruise-y by floating over to me, glancing down into the water at my dick and resting next to me for a while. I ignored him and he went elsewhere. There was a same-sex couple sitting on the steps into the baths giving each other massages...but as my travel buddy said, probably no worse than you would see on a mixed day between couples. Nobody seemed to give them much notice.
A few tricks I learned by watching are to wring out your apron as soon as you get out of the bath so that it isn't so see-through (if that matters to you). As I bobbed in the water my apron invariably floated around, but the lighting and waves made it pretty hard to see too much. Keep your eyes up in the dome if you don't want to see acres of man-ass (and I am not a fan of the ass) because with assless aprons...you see acres of man-ass there. If you happen to bone up, just hang out in the water till you get control. There were towels available that you could carry around if you were worried about boneage...but out of all the guys there I only saw five guys anywhere near half mast and only 10 or so carried a towel.
After about 2 hours, my buddy and I decided to call it a day and rinsed off, used one of the sheet-like towels to dry off with, got dressed and turned-in our wristbands on the way out. The cold outside was not nearly as intense having been warmed up, and we picked-up my laundry on the way back to the hotel room where we took proper soapy showers.
I went into as much detail here as I did to take some of the mystery out of these baths so that anyone visiting Budapest might feel more confident in attending. It really is a unique and authentic experience being in a 450 year old building that is still used the same way as it had been constructed, and having survived so many wars, plagues and cultural changes. Yes, you will see lots of dicks and ass...but you get over that pretty quickly. They almost all start looking the same after you see so many. A lot of Americans associate baths with gay action, but there were no real opportunities I saw for sex. If two guys had started to get it on, I think the others would have called them out. My travel buddy is totally straight and he felt comfortable in the end saying he would go again if he was in town.
Hopefully some of you will get to visit Budapest one of these days and won't feel overwhelmed by the idea of attending the baths. They are a great part of Hungarian culture in Budapest. If you do visit, tell us what your experiences were!
