Meskó Csaba: Thermal Baths - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

regent of Hungary), published his book on Hungary, a compendium of book summaries and his personal experiences, in 1536, during his stay in Brussels. It is from this source that we learn how in 1178 the Knights of St John (the Knights Hospitalers) established their Hungarian settlement at Felhévíz (üpper Hot Waters), that is around the location of today’s Császár and Lukács Baths. They named one of their two bases after the Holy Trinity, the other after the Holy Ghost. They built a monastery, a church, a hospital and a bath for each of the two colonies.

There was a popular bath here under King Matthias, too. Miklós Oláh makes mention of the luxurious bathing house at Felhévíz as well as the famous church of the settlement. In 1583, Vadianus, a teacher from Vienna, records the existence of the medicinal springs here providing water for the Császár Baths.

The baths saw their heyday under the Turkish occupation. According to a surviving memorial plaque, they were extended and rebuilt by Mustapha Sokollu in 1571-72; today’s oldest extant building also dates back to Turkish times. Edward Brown, who was commissioned by the Royal Society to travel in the region down to Constantinople, included Buda in his itinerary. This is how he accounts of his stop here in a book that published in London in 1673:

“Of the eight baths I actually bathed in a few. The finest of these is the one called Velibey, a bath beautified under

The Turkish cupola of Császár Baths

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