Hungary: One Nation Under Water

Let’s say you have a people living in a landlocked nation. Not only is there no sea, but this country is surrounded by beautiful mountains.  These people’s ancestors happened to arrive and conquer this land on horseback.

And somehow these people also have developed an incredible love of water. It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s Hungary for you – a nation of water babies

In lieu of any coastline Hungary has hundreds of thermal springs, which have spas and bathhouse built over them. Mentioning the spa to a North American immediately conjures an image of a fancy-pantsy retreat in the country where moneyed folks enjoy their mud baths and massages. In Budapest, the baths are for everyone, from the working man right on up to royalty.

Did I mention they are in the city limits? Nowhere else in the world do you have not just one, but several baths within a city. There’s something for everyone. For the mud bath enthusiasts, you have the fancy pants Gellert Spa (I don’t know about mud bath availability though). You’re already familiar with the old Turkish baths in Rudas if you’ve seen the opening fight scene of the Schwarzenegger classic Red Heat. It was filmed there.

Look past the man pecks, and you see Rudas.

No man pecks here.

My first encounter with the baths was with a group of Hungarian friends at the Baroque outdoor wonder that is Szechenyi in the morning of New Year’s Eve.

It’s a tradition. You arrive in the morning, spend the day loosening up and use that relaxation to take a long nap before the parties begin. The fog was so thick that morning that you felt like you were all alone in an outdoor thermal pool filled with several hundred people. You could hear the fountain splashing and gurgling in the middle of the pool, but you didn’t know it was there until you walked right into its spray.

Kata and I try to get to Szechenyi every time she's in Budapest. In our opinion, it's the best bath in the city.

Hungary also has a large shallow summer-getaway lake. About a two-hour drive from Budapest, this lake is sort of like Canada’s Muskokas, if the Muskokas weren’t pockmarked with eyesore mansions and the calm wasn’t interrupted by jetskiers going back and forth.

On Balaton, motor traffic is limited to the ferries, allowing people to actually swim in the lake or take sailboats out. And the mansions? The communists turned them into hostels for vacationing state company workers (some of which are still used for that purpose).

The lake is shallow, no deeper than three or four meters, but it’s large enough that there are plenty of places to visit along its shore, each with its own character.

Last month for my birthday Kata and I went to Badascony, a hill formed by volcanic fissures. This left basalt columns on the hill and rich, volcanic soil below it for amazing wine growing. We spent an afternoon hiking up the hill. Exiting the park we came out onto a road lined with wine cellars and drank as we returned to our hotel to suit up and go for a swim in the lake.

The summer before, friends and I made it out to Siofok, which is Balaton’s beach resort town. It has a sandy beach and a lot of muscled dudes and bikini-clad ladies ambling along, trying to be seen.

Across the lake, Tihany is different still. It’s a hilled peninsula jutting into the Lake, almost cutting it in half. The hiking is ok, the view is incredible, and there are quiet, private beaches to be enjoyed – if you can sneak onto one.

Feet up in Siofok. Photo by Torma.

Hiking in Badacsony.

Our forbidden beach. Photo by Kata.

Somehow, this lake, the land’s springs, and this water baby love culminated into a fierce water sports competitive spirit. Hungary, per capita, has a dizzying amount of Olympians – many are divers, swimmers, and, most popularly, water polo players.

There’s a lot of history in water polo here, and I will not get into it here. For those unfamiliar with the sport, it does not involve riding horses in the water. Think of it as rugby in the water. It’s brutally violent, incredibly exhausting, but very entertaining for the rest of us watching.

In Hungary, water polo players are treated like hockey players in Canada. They are revered national heroes, endorsing all sorts of products and marrying women who Canadians would recognize as puck bunnies. The similarities are eerie, sometimes.

A Hungarian telcom set up a water polo pool with big screens in
a Budapest public square for Euro Water Polo Tournament

Needless to say, water polo is a big deal in Hungary. I caught the water polo bug during the recent European Championships, which were held here. I wasn’t at the point where I was running down the street with a Hungarian flag as a cape, but I was getting home to watch the games on TV. I was jubilant with every win for Hungary, and I was crushed when they were trounced in the finals by Serbia. Admittedly, it might not just be water polo I was enjoying; I could be turning into a Hungarian nationalist too.

How a landlocked country is filled with bath-going, water polo-loving people is still beyond me. Hungary can seem like a nation of peculiarities, and this is just of one of them – and it’s a fun one, if you ask me. So I’m just going with it.