Gettin' Naked in Budapest

I LOVE water, like some women love chocolate or wine, so much so that a long bath is on my daily to-do list. So when my friend told me about the Turkish-style baths in Budapest, the city automatically trumped every other in Eastern Europe.

I shopped for a bathing suit my last few days in Poland and when I first got to Budapest with no luck. No worries, my friend told me. There were suits for rent and purchase at the baths.

Budapest has more pools than any large city in the world with about 125; the Turkish introduced the medicinal springs in the 16th century, sparking a whole culture there. Hungarians believe their baths have medicinal qualities (mineral composition varies) but the places are also a huge gathering spot for friends to catch up. Those hot springs were just what I needed after spending my whole days on foot in Krakow, a night crammed into an overnight train cabin and then a morning struggling up and down Buda's hills.

First stop: Gellért Baths, at the hill and inside the hotel of the same name, and only because I stumbled on it in my travels. That meant I didn't have a bathing suit in tow. No worries, the lady at the front desk said, after I paid for my evening pass; I could get one inside.

I could have had they Not. Run. Out. of Suits, the locker room attendant said as I stood in front of her, already undressed, wrapped only in a "towel." It's no big deal, she told me. In fact, she seemed irritated about my sheepishness. Hungarian women go in the bath naked ALLL the time and pffft, it's all women today, she said. *She rolls eyes* "Go in." *She rolls eyes again.*

Maybe I was being silly. I mean, if everybody else was going in nekkid, then what was the problem, right? And isn't part of traveling to foreign countries experiencing the culture? I mean, I was kind of acting like a conservative American girl who sat around all day reading the Wall Street Journal and all night watching old episodes of Ugly Betty.

And so, I went into the pool area with just a towel, hoping to run and jump into the pool.

Wonk Wonk.

The lady, she lies. I was the onnnnnly one without a suit. And, all eyes were on me, the woman with the pink bathing cap and nothing under her rented towel, which was more like a sheet, if you ask me.

I knew I wasn't leaving the spa, not with my legs feeling like someone had been sitting on them for the last few days. So I did what a Hungarian woman would do: I waited until the last minute to drop my towel and rushed into the pool. Except, of course, a Hungarian woman would have brought a bathing suit.

I made sure I was only visible from the neck up above the blue water and tried to relax and enjoy the environment and pretend that no one had peeped my flabby bum. The Art Nouveau architecture was quite impressive. Afterward, I was tempted to head into the spa for a chocolate massive, but I was just done.

Day 2 was much better as I headed to Széchenyi Bath in Pest's City Park. They had bathing suits. A good thing since it was an outdoor facility and there were men there. No bathing suit, no bathing for me. Not this time. Although Széchenyi was massive, this was my favorite of the two spas as the water was sooo much hotter and the pools were situated right underneath the warm sun. Here, ladies caught up with each other and chess was a common diversion for the men.

There was also a large open-air pool between the two hot springs, but my legs weren't in any shape to move much, so I parked myself right in front of the jets in the hottest medicinal pool. The sign warned that I should only stay in the pool no more than 20 minutes. Do you think I listened? Of course not. I chilled, or rather soaked, for perhaps 90 minutes, emerging only after my head started spinning.