Fürdők – Fürdőhelyek, Magyarország fürdői (Budapest, 2008)

BUDAPEST "THE QUEEN OF THE DANUBE RIVER" On the grounds of geothermal measuring Budapest is one of the richest cities in thermal waters in the world. The thermal water you can find here has been known and has been consumed for centuries. From 118 natural and drilled thermal wells, 30.000 litre of thermal water gets into the surface each and every day. "Budapest is predestined to develop into the most famous medicinal bath place in the world where the foreign visitors of the medicinal baths can find all the advantages of the different medicinal wells' treatments" wrote János Benyó in his work titled "Budapest: the resort place and the tourism" in 1932. This territory near the Danube River has been resident since the early Bronze Age. Approximately 2000 years ago, Celts lived here in a little settlement called "Ak-ink" which meant "lot of water". In the 2nd century B.C., Roman conquers appeared who used the Danube River as a natural border line of the Pannonian territory. One of their most significant settlements was the Aquincum in Obuda, which was a real bath city. The excavations revealed ruins of 14 baths among which the biggest, the "Thermae Maiores" now can be found under the Flórián square, in Budapest. In the 13th century, Andrew II. of Hungary founded an infirmary where his daughter St. Elisabeth of Hungary was healing lepers. The first bathhouses were built above the mineral waters of Buda in the 15th century, in the time of Sigismund, Hungarian king. Later, through one and a half century of Turkish domination in Hungary, several health resorts, as known as "ilidza" and steam baths "hamam" were built. New baths were raised around the time of the Austro- Hungarian Compromise. Famous baths like the St. Margaret, built in 1869 by Miklós Ybl, the Széchenyi, built in 1913 and the St. Gerard, a modern bath and hotel, finally opened in 1918. In 1922, the Balneological Society of Budapest was formed and in 1929, a bath law announced several other baths as medical baths: Császárfürdő, Erzsébetfürdő, Rudasfürdő and the St. Emeric bath. In 1930, Budapest gained the honored title of "Bath town". KATALIN CSAPÓ Korabeli számolócédula Cash slip of the period