A Remedy for Jet Lag

My husband Tim was tapped to teach a course at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest, Hungary during the week of March 4th.

We arrived in Budapest safely this afternoon, but that sense of safety was soon jettisoned by our taxi driver.  He drove us through the city’s streets at top speed, dodging cars and pedestrians as if he were operating a pinball machine instead of a vehicle.  

Thankfully, we arrived at our hotel which is situated on the banks of the Danube River in Pest.  Did you know that Buda is the city west of the Danube while Pest is the city on its eastern bank?  Over time, people began to speak of these two cities as Budapest.

Széchenyi Baths

Dropping our bags and grabbing our swimsuits, we sought to soothe our jet-lagged bodies by ‘taking the waters’ at one of the more than one hundred hot springs Budapest has to offer.  We didn’t realize that we’d be changing our clothes in a unisex locker room and locking our belongings, including our passports, in a locker that refused to unlock.  Ha!  Stress-free is NOT how I would describe this venture.  But more about that later...

Budapest is known as the Hot Springs Capital of Europe.

Almost 2,000 years ago, the Roman army established a strategic garrison here called Aquincum.  The thermal springs in this area were undoubtedly a consideration in that decision.  The remains of two Roman baths have been excavated by archaeologists in the Obuda neighborhood of the city.  

The Romans weren’t the only invading force to appreciate the area’s thermal hot spots.  In 1526, the Ottoman Turks invaded Budapest and occupied the two cities off and on for the next two centuries; their Moorish influence has become an integral part of the city’s culture.   Today Rudas Bath is the most Moorish of the city’s baths.

Rudas Baths
(Photo from Budapest.com web site)

Széchenyi Baths, only a mile’s hike from our hotel, sounded like the perfect remedy for our jet lag.  Tim and I walked up Andrássy Avenue, an iconic boulevard of Budapest...

Past the Hungarian State Opera House...

Past the House of Terror where Nazi and Communist police interrogated and tortured citizens,

Past the Franz Liszt Music Academy...

Past the beloved Heroes'  Square... 

To City Park where the Széchenyi Baths are located.

There we paid the entrance fee, 3500 Florints per adult, and received our plastic watch-bands which would lock one of the bath’s empty lockers.  Entering the communal locker room, we found an empty stall with another door just opposite the entry door.  A wooden wall bench approximately 3-1/2 feet long separated the two doors of our stall.  Neither door had a lock of any kind on it.  Believe me!  We searched!

One of the five hot springs pools in Szechenyi Baths

Quickly, and with our buttocks to the door nearest us, we changed out of our street clothes into our swimsuits.  Exiting the door on the far side, we found a room full of lockers. Stashing our clothing into an empty locker, we used one of our plastic wristbands to seal it shut.  Then, Tim, ever the careful member of our family, tested the lock by trying to open it once again.  No luck!  Tim beat upon the locker door to no avail.  Finally, he jimmied the door’s handle up and down until the lock gave way.  Whew!  What a relief!

Tim enjoying the sunset

With the locker now open, we saw that the hanger we’d used to hang up our clothing was the culprit in keeping the door locked.  It had shifted against the door in such a way that it wedged the door shut.  All of Tim’s pounding and rattling worked to shift the hanger far enough to open the door.  

Hi, Tim!

When we finally reached the thermal waters of the spa, we soaked our aches and pains away as we watched a beautiful sunset.

That's me!

Refreshed and rejuvenated, we once again entered the locker room and found an empty dressing stall to provide privacy as we changed back into our street clothes.  There Tim discovered that the lip of the wooden bench, when raised, would lock both doors securely.  What an ingenious design!

Yes, Széchenyi Baths was just the remedy to raise our jet-lagged spirits!