'Never in the field of human bathing was so much offered to so many for so little,' might a Churchillian mayor say to promote Budapest, a city brimming with hot springs and the imagination to know what to do with them - plus the restraint to charge a pittance for their enjoyment. The baths of the Hungarian capital are a wonder to behold, an example of municipal munificence unmatched anywhere in the world. Citizens and visitors don't just get a good soak; they get palaces to do it in.
The Romans started it two millennia ago, when they were delighted to find hot mineral waters springing in abundance from the banks of the River Danube. However, when the marauding Magyars galloped here in 896AD and decided to stay, they didn't share the Romans' enthusiasm for bathing.
The Knights of St John, engaged in caring for the sick, used the medicinal waters in medieval times but it took the Turks, flooding into the city in the 16th century, to get a bathing culture going again. However, it was that long line of European rulers, the Hapsburgs, who built the opulent bathing complexes that grace today's Budapest.
The love of bathing and the magnificence of the baths themselves set Budapest apart from any other metropolis on the planet. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Szechenyi Baths, Europe's largest - and surely grandest - medicinal bathing complex, on the northern edge of the city centre.
A cobblestoned drive, clearly designed for the horse-and-carriage era, sweeps up to a great palace capped with three huge copper domes, sporting a lofty portico. Pay 2,800 forints (HK$125) at the box office - 'ticket window' is too inadequate a term for this - and you're in for a grand spectacle. The domed and colonnaded buildings are daubed in Hapsburg imperial yellow. They enclose an Olympic-sized swimming pool, featuring sculpted gods and goddesses lounging alongside, with a turquoise semi-circular hot pool at one extremity and another half-moon pool at the other. Inside the ornate vestibule, the high walls and soaring ceiling are alive with dazzling mosaic panels depicting classical bathing scenes and mythical heroes.
It's amazing - and there's more. All around are indoor hot and cold pools, power showers, saunas, steam baths and massage parlours, plus a cafe, a restaurant and bar, a gym, a health clinic and more. And you can spend all day here. The surroundings are also impressive: the whole thing is set amid the 100-hectare City Park, featuring gardens and lakes, a zoo and a gigantic fake castle.
Budapest is well endowed with thermal springs said to possess medicinal properties and it is these that supply its many baths. Most are publicly owned and are now managed by the Budapest Healing Baths and Hot Springs Company. Its website is extremely helpful, listing, in English, all the ailments that can be treated and the baths best suited to each.