As you might have guessed, I've fallen way behind in my blogging. Partying all night long on the cruise has taken it's toll. Finishing every night with an Armagnac, Calvados or Asbach Uralt. Oh my! Asbach Uralt is blended from 25 different wine distillations, aged for about 3 years in, yes.. limousin oak casks. It’s marginally fruitier than a Cognac, the grapes come through – with an ABV of 38%. The Uralt is produced in Rudesheim.

Well, to get the body back in its usual altered state, I (we) had a turkish bath.

There are seven Turkish baths in Budapest. Everyone knows about Szechenyi and Gellert. They were remodeled in the 30's I assume, as they are the Art Deco baths. Pretty to look at, however I prefer my Art Deco with a meal, not a bath.

Király Gyógyfürdő was built in the late 1500's. This is serious bathing not p**** bathing. It's not the sort of pklace where you can take a camera, so I photographed the outside but downloaded some of the inside. Believe it or not, it is just around the corner from our hotel; not 100 metres away.

The woman at the desk was next to useless and bloody lazy. Yesterday they said either Euros or credit card. Today it was only HUF. The girl at the hotel said she could only change small amounts of Euros. E16 was just OK. She gave us 6,400 HUF. Admission was 4,800 HUF which is E16. When we returned to the hotel we returned the change; 1,600Huf . It would have come out of her pocket.

Back to the baths. Upstairs to our "cabin". A miniscule changing room in which two could just fit. Into cossies/bathers/trunks whatever and down to the showers. Strip off cossies/bathers/trunks whatever and shower thoroughly. Step through a low arched doorway and enter the first small bath maybe 5m x 3m. Probably only 30c. We sat up to our necks in the water and looked up at the domed ceiling tiles in small blue and white mosaics. The walls and the bath tiled in dark brown stone, all very worn by time.

Into the main octagonal pool under the large domed roof. The ceiling is dark brown stone with three concentric circles of small skyights (maybe 10cm in diameter). 8 in the inner circle and 16 in the middle and outer, so it barely lights the room and is supported by four dome lights on the walls. It is all paved in dark prown stone. You can barely see the features of people on the other side of the pool, which is probably 15 metres in diameter.

Initially it was only us and a dozen or so locals. Then three Japanese, three young Poms and a couple of other tourists arrived. The protocol we observed from the locals is that you lie in the bath either with the back of your head resting on the edge of the pool and your body floating or strethed out into the pool or your arms cradling your head on the edge of the pool lying face down with body again in the pool. There was a massive water spout pouring 36c water into the pool and several men hogged it; lying under it so that it poured over their head. I eventually tried it and when face down and right in under the fountain of water, I could see a thick layer of built up "limestone". Kinda like staligmites/staligtights in a cave. The water contains sodium, calcium, magnesium bicarbonate, sulphate-chloride and a significant amount of fluoride ion, so all the ingtredients for a cave.

The springs in NZ smell like rotten eggs. In Király Gyógyfürdő it smells like 400 year old rotten eggs. We did get used to it after a while. We wallowed in the pool for around 1.5 hours till we resembled prunes. I then entered the 40c pool to prepare myself for the steam room. I had initially opend the steam room door and the blast of stem drove me back. 5 minutes at 40c and into the steam room. 1 minute at 80c and I was out and into the cold plunge pool (20c). I then rejoined Ches in the main pool, before we called it quits.

Unfortunately the sun had left the central grassed courtyard. Here there was a jacuzi and gardens with sun chairs scattered all around. When we arrived, people who had already bathed were sitting around in the sun chatting.

We had each been fitted with a wrist band with a chip in place of a watch face. This had allowed us to enter through the turnstiles and opened our "cabin". When we came to leave, we dropped the band into a container which read the chip and opened the turnstile to leave. Modern technology in a 400 year old fascility.

In summary, no bling anywhere, however an old world ambiance and the constant thought that you were sitting in a bath that people had been bathing in for 400 years. They do change the water however.

That should set us up for a good nights sleep and we will spend most of tomorrow traveling to Madrid.