The ‘green column bath’ of Budapest – Rudas Thermal baths The beautiful building of Rudas bath made a name in the world of Hollywood movies as well, in 1988 the bath was used as a shooting place for the action movie Red Heat, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi, and in 2012 for some sceneries of the Borgias with Jeremy Irons. Rudas Bath’s Turkish-style bathhouse was built in the 1560s by Sokullu Mustafa, the that time Pasha of Buda. During the 150 years of Turkish reign in Hungary, this was the biggest bath built in Buda. At that time the warm water arrived to the pools from no less, then 21 hot springs. After the that time colour of 8 the pillar sustaining the huge dome above the octagonal central pool, the Turks called the bath Jesil Direkli Ilidzsami, – ”the bath with green columns”. The dome, the big pool, and the stairs leading into the central pool are still the original ones. Once upon a time this pool got light through the still can be seen elephants eyes, dotting the lanterna of the 10 m wide cuppola even today. When you are in a mood for swimming, beside the pools built by Turkish, there’s a large swimming pool underneath a beautiful, two-story, classicist-style building, which is an addition of the 19th century. The swimming pool, operating as a therapeutic swimming facility and with a sauna, was built in 1896. The thermal bath has been visited from 1936 on exclusively by men. All over inside the Rudas, one can feel a light smell of minerals, as the hot spring feeding the bath is rich in calcium, magnesium, hydrogen-carbonate, sulfate and sodium. From the drinking wells located on the hallways you can even taste the healing water of the spring. Rudas bath was almost completely destroyed during WWII. The bath was reconstructed step by step, first in 1952, then 1986, 2006 and 2012. In its drinking hall – reopened in 1965 – the water of the springs Hungária, Attila and Juventus can be consumed for the purposes of a drinking cure.
