Bath House sights in Europe
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Gellért Baths
The city's most famous thermal spa is the Gellért Baths below Gellért Hill. Soaking in this Art Nouveau palace has been likened to taking a bath in a cathedral. The pools here maintain a constant temperature of 44°C (111°F).
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Sandunovskiye Baths
The Sandunovskiye Baths, in the city centre's northern winding streets, is Moscow's most famous bathhouse. The fading but grand 19th-century baths are a mixture of sauna and social club, with sexes strictly segregated. For hours you can move between steam rooms and pools, interspersed with massages and twig whippings.
Travellers to Russia have for centuries commented on the particular (or in many people's eyes, peculiar) traditions of the banya (bathhouse), regularly enjoyed by numerous Muscovites at Sandunovskiye. The banya's main element is the parilka (steam room), which can get so hot it makes the Finnish look like sauna-wusses in comparison.
The first stage is to str…
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Omeriye Hammam
Switch off your mobile, put your shower cap on, and strip down to your birthday suit for a lovely, relaxing Turkish bath at Omeriye Hammam. This building was recently restored and sports a luxurious, stylish design. The domed reception has an enormous chandelier hanging over the circular bar area, while candles, mirrors and a refreshing minty scent accompany the baths themselves.
The 16th-century Omeriye Hammam is a safe, popular and relaxing spot, with separate days for men and women, and same-sex masseurs. As you go in you get a complimentary bottle of water, towels (one large, one small) and a cup of herbal tea to relax with after the bath. Apart from the basic steam b…
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travertines
Most people come to Pamukkale to see its famous travertines. Walking around them is enjoyable even now that access is restricted - though you'll never get a photo quite like the ones on the postcards. The route up to the northern entrance is about 3km long but is on tarmac, whereas from the southern ticket kiosk you have to walk 250m barefoot up to the plateau, along a calcium path through the travertines themselves. Tiny ridges of calcium make this tough on tender feet.
Since the site is open 24 hours you can visit for sunrise and sunset. Some pensions also organise trips to view the Hierapolis theatre and the travertines after dark.
You can swim in the Antique Pool in Hi…
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Spa Vilnius
Druskininkai is spa-riddled. But beware; not all are swish. Step into the wrong place and you could be slapped around by a formidable babushka straight out of a horror movie.
Striking designwise is Spa Vilnius. This spa, with a retro 1950s-style café-bar inside an eight-storey hotel, sports the best indoor swimming pool (filled with local mineral water) and a clutch of baths, including one with seaweed and another with mud. It also offers the full range of massages, including underwater body and Shiatsu foot ones. Scary-sounding things like intestine showers and gynaecologic irrigations are other mineral-water treatments on offer.
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Negombo
Recover from museum fatigue at Negombo. Part spa resort, part botanical wonderland, its combination of Zen-like thermal pools, hammam, contemporary sculpture and private beach on San Montano Bay draws a younger crowd than many other Ischian spa spots. There's a Japanese labyrinth pool for weary feet, a decent tavola calda (snack bar) for growling stomachs and enough massage and beauty treatments to keep you oooh-ing all day long. Those arriving by car or scooter can park on site for a small daily fee.
For a free dip in the bay, follow the signs to the spiaggia (beach) out the front of Negombo.
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Spa Centras
Druskininkai is spa-riddled. But beware; not all are swish. Step into the wrong place and you could be slapped around by a formidable babushka straight out of a horror movie.
Hot-choice Spa Centras, inside Hotel Druskininkai, has separate bubbling pools, inviting serious wallowers to pick from Dead Sea water, local mineral water or good old tap water. On the massage front, the body pummel with warm honey - a stronger massage than with regular or aromatic oil - wins hands down, although the massage with silky-smooth hot Hawaii stones is heavenly.
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Roman baths
Beyond the Arch of Domitian you come to the ruins of the Roman baths, then to the Appian Way of Hierapolis, an extraordinary necropolis (cemetery), extending several kilometres to the north, with many striking, even stupendous, tombs in all shapes and sizes. In particular, look out for a cluster of circular tombs, supposedly topped with phallic symbols in antiquity.
In ancient times Hierapolis was a place where the sick came for a miracle cure, but the size of the necropolis suggests the local healers had mixed success.
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Terme Cavascuro
For a fabulously atmospheric spa experience, catch a water taxi to Cavascura (one way around €3.50) and follow the signs 300 metres down a rocky gorge to Terme Cavascuro. Wedged between soaring cliffs, this historic frills-free outdoor spa is Ischia's oldest. Soak in old Roman baths hewn into the cliff, sweat it out in a grotto, then (for an extra fee) top it all off with a mud wrap, manicure or massage. The sulphurous waters are reputedly beneficial for rheumatic, bronchial and skin conditions.
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Parco Termale Aphrodite Apollon
A spectacular, if partly strenuous, 2 km walk above the coast from Sant'Angelo also reaches the spa, passing on its way the faded luxury of Parco Termale Aphrodite Apollon. Beyond its ivy-clad entrance is a rambling complex of gyms, saunas, lush terraced gardens and 12 differently heated pools, including one for hydro-cycling. Beauty treatments include tailored kinesiology therapies, wine facials and soothing mud showers. Buffed and balanced, flaunt that new bod at the beach bar below.
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Druskininkai Spa
Druskininkai is spa-riddled. But beware; not all are swish. Step into the wrong place and you could be slapped around by a formidable babushka straight out of a horror movie. Druskininkai Spa is a peppermint-green, riverside building propped up by marble columns. Pearl, herbal, mineral, mud and even vertical baths are among its wonderful watery delights. It treats a mind-boggling array of diseases - cardiovascular, cutaneous, vestibular, endocrinal etc.
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Termas Romanas
Inside the entrance hall of the câmara municipal on Praça de Sertório are more Roman vestiges, discovered only in 1987. The impressive Termas Romanas (Roman baths), which include a laconicum (heated room for steam baths) with a superbly preserved 9m-diameter circular pool, would have been the largest public building in Roman Évora. The complex also includes an open-air swimming pool, discovered in 1994.
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Aljibe Baños Árabes
Granada has two Baños Árabes (Arabic baths) and a visit to one of these is a must for the sheer lazy pleasure of it. Both baths offer a similar deal: a bath and aromatherapy massage that last for two hours (bath 1hr 45min, massage 15min) and both need advance reservations. Swimwear is obligatory (you can rent it), towels are provided, and all sessions are mixed. The better of the pair is Aljibe Baños Árabes.
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Spa de Vinothérapie Caudalie
To immerse yourself, literally, in the local liquid, at the Spa de Vinothérapie Caudalie you can take a red-wine bath, enjoy a Merlot wrap or order a Cabernet body scrub. Apart from the sheer novelty factor, the vine and grape extracts are said to promote blood-strengthening and anti-ageing. The spa is 20 minutes south of Bordeaux next to Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte. It's best reached by your own wheels - exit the A62 at junction 1.
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Hammam
The tiny Hammam is near the mosque. It isn't really a tourist site, and visitors are not encouraged to go in and 'have a look', since many count on privacy when going in for a steam bath. Don't go there expecting any luxury; it's a back-to-basics place where people go to relax. Keep in mind that all sessions are mixed. Also on offer are full-body massages, shiatsu, Swedish massage, Indian head massage, and anti-stress massages.
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Tallaras Roman Baths
Analipsi (also known as Maltezana) is 7km beyond Marmari in a fertile valley on the isthmus. A former Maltese pirates' lair, it's a scattered, pleasantly laid-back settlement with a long sand and pebble beach, shaded by more ever-welcoming tamarisk trees. The water is clean and shallow. There are the remains of the Tallaras Roman Baths with mosaics on the settlement's outskirts.
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Baños Árabes
A most welcome activity in Málaga is the Baños Árabes, a perfect place to sit back and sweat it out amid the steamy semidarkness to the sound of soothing music. Unlike some Arabic baths in Andalucía, there are no pools to bathe in here. Book your visit in advance. Specialist massages, including Ayurvedic and aromatherapy treatments, are by appointment only.
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Edificio Termale
Along the water to the east of the forum (take Via dell'Arsenale) are the fenced-off remains of the ancient arsenal, once a set of rectangular pits into which ships would be pulled for re-provisioning. Adjacent are the ruins of the Edificio Termale (Thermal Building), a Byzantine bathhouse; it is claimed the Emperor Constans was assassinated with a soap dish here in 668.
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Pasha Memi Baths (Ruins)
One of Pécs' most enjoyable pedestrian streets, Ferencesek utcája, runs east from Rákóczi út to Széchenyi tér, where Király utca also becomes pedestrian. You'll pass the ruins of the 16th-century Pasha Memi Baths, three beautiful old churches and, on Király utca, the neo-rococo Pécs National Theatre (Király utca).
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Abanotubani
The social hub of the area is further south – Tbilisi’s famed sulphur baths, the Abanotubani. Alexanders Dumas and Pushkin both bathed here, the latter describing it as the best bath he’d ever had. Abano (Bath St) is full of subterranean bathhouses with beehive domes rising at ground level, most dating back to the 17th century
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National Gallery
Across from Sveti Dimitija is the Daut Pašin Amam (1466), once the largest Turkish bathhouse in the Balkans, and now home to the National Gallery. Housing some excellent modern art and a small collection of icons dating back to the 14th century, the building is lit by star-shaped holes in the brickwork of the beautiful copper-clad domes.
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Roman Bath Complex
Excavation work to create a ventilation shaft for the metro uncovered the well-preserved ruins of a large Roman bath complex. The baths, which extend into the National Gardens, were established near the Ilissos river after the Herulian raids in the 3rd century AD; they were destroyed and repaired again in the 5th or 6th century.
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Il Fungo
In the 1950s and 1960s, French starlets and European royalty came to play at the legendary Terme Regina Isabella spa resort. The stars may have gone but one local icon remains, sprouting out of the sea: the iconic Il Fungo (The Mushroom) is a 10-metre volcanic rock formation spat out by Monte Epomeo thousands of years ago.
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Giardini Poseidon
South of Forio, spa lovers can soak and splash at the sprawling Giardini Poseidon. Breathe in as you ponder a mind-boggling choice of treatments and facilities, which include saunas, Jacuzzis and baby-blue pools filled with salubrious mineral waters. If it's all too stressful, settle for the dazzling private beach below.
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Terme Stabiane
On Via dell'Abbondanza, the Terme Stabiane is a typical 2nd-century-BC bath complex. Entering from the vestibule, bathers would stop off in the vaulted apodyterium (changing room) before passing through to the tepidarium (warm room) and caldarium (hot room).
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