Thermal Baths and Hotels in Hungary [antikvár]

ForewordAs Japanese Snow Monkeys will instinctively seek out thermal springs, so animals have probably been enjoying the beneficial effects of the thermal springs in Hungary since long before the appearance of humans there. They had it easy: there are thermal waters under some three-quarters of the country, some of which rise to the surface naturally, without any need for drilling. Archaeological digs prove that primitive man always settled near a source of water, or springs, so essential for life.The first written records date from Roman times, when Emperor Nero's stepson, Tiberius Nero, established the first Roman settlement on the area of what is now Budapest after conquering Pannonia. Having found thermal springs, it was not difficult to extend what was an advanced Roman bathing culture to Aquincum. The following centuries were not always favourable to bathing culture, but the introduction to the section on the baths in Budapest will make it clear that there was some continuity in the post-Roman Middle Ages. In 1178, the Knights of Malta built a bath house in Buda, while in the 13th century a leper colony was built on the sulphuric springs on Margit Island. Bathing culture blossomed in the time of King Matthias Corvinus. Uniquely in Europe, four baths left over from the Ottoman occupation in Buda function to this day (with another extant in Eger).In the Middle Ages, the staff in thermal baths were known as "bathmen" and, like barbers at the time, they also carried out some medical tasks. They formed guilds and, like other professional guilds, started off as apprentices, then fellows, before they acquired the status of "bathman" and thereby the right to pull teeth, let blood and heal wounds. During Ottoman times, bathmen were called hamamjis or hamamis.Under the Empress Maria Theresa, the thermal waters of the entire country were catalogued, and as well as Buda, there were bathing11