Bathing Bliss

Robert Liebman Goes Spa Hunting in Hungary

“If we in the west were as familiar with Hungarian and Czech as we are with French and German, many more of us would realise that central Europe is full of spas,” says Tsvia Vorley, London-based sales and marketing manager for Danubius Hotels Group. “And many of these spas are close enough to Vienna and Budapest to be very convenient for business travellers.”

Her point is well taken. Many of us are familiar with names like Évian-les-Bains, Baden Baden and Wiesbaden. Bath is bain in French and bad in German, and we can be forgiven for associating health spas with France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Even the term spa itself derives from the name of a Belgian town near Liege where mineral waters believed to be curative were discovered more than 700 years ago. On the other hand, the Czech mouthful Marianske Lazne is more familiar and digestible to us by its other name, Marienbad.

In fact, there are dozens of spas and spa hotels in Hungary and the Czech Republic alone. Many spa hotels are architecturally resplendent buildings located in glorious rustic settings. These spas offer treatments for conditions running the gamut from serious medical ailments to a need or desire for casual fitness and recreation exercises, and beauty treatment with natural minerals. Harried executives are visiting these resorts simply to reduce stress and get the kind of pampering that a sauna can offer.

“Don’t lump all spas together,” Mrs Vorley suggests. “The water in the thermal spas in Hungary is hot, and the springs in the Czech Republic are cold. And within a single spa, there can be different kinds of springs and different kinds of treatments.”

As summer becomes a distant memory – “Summer? What summer?” – a spa located deep in the countryside can be just what the fitness doctor ordered. “Winter can be magical when you are in a hot spring with steam rising around you and you are also surrounded by snow,” says Mrs Vorley.

Danubius’ Hotel Heviz is on the rim of Hungary’s huge and hugely popular Lake Balaton, which is 100 km (c. 60 miles) southwest of Budapest. The lake itself is 80 km (50 miles) long and 10 km (6 miles) wide.

The hotel is even closer to a thermal lake which is not well known generally but has its own claim to fame. This is the thermal Lake Heviz, and it is fed by springs which deliver 20,000 litres of mineral water per minute, enough new water to ensure that the lake renews itself every 72 hours.

Lake Heviz is also so large that only one other thermal lake in the world that compares with it is in New Zealand. In summer the water reaches 33-35 degrees (c. 91-95 Fahrenheit), and even in winter the temperature is reassuringly warm, not dropping below 26 Celsius (79 Fahrenheit). The swimming pool in the Danubius Heviz is fed by this spring, and peat mud from the lake bottom is used for mudbaths.

Each spa tends to have medical staff in attendance, advising visitors who take the waters, waddle in mud, inject themselves with gas and engage in other practices in hopes of curing arthritis, back pain and spinal complaints, digestive difficulties and a host of other ailments.

People with heart or other specific conditions are well advised to avoid certain treatments, and medical staff at the spa itself are on hand to match treatment to client.

Customers tend to come away from the spa experience not just satisfied but also alive and well. Nonetheless, radon, which is a radioactive gas, and oestrogen, which is a female hormone, are among the substances you might meet either in the mudbath or via other forms of treatment. Look, think and get authoritative independent medical advice before you leap.

Danubius has approximately two dozen hotels in Central Europe, in Budapest and the countryside.