lørdag 16. mai 2009

Széchenyi Baths



Take the metro #1. to the next-last stop.

I went to this thermal bath at a day with 30 degrees c. Not the best day to visit I think. It was crowded and it looked like they had some problems with cleaning because of all the people. The water in this bath has a temp. at 40 degrees c. Since it was very warm in the air, I never entered the hot bath, but lots of other people did. I can believe it must be amazing at this bath in winter-time!

søndag 10. mai 2009

The spa at Corinthia Grand





The spa was great. It was not very big, but it was clean and had some beds to sit/lay down in. Two saunas and one steam-room. Two jacuzzies. The swimming-pool contains real hot-spring water! I read, somewhere at the internet, that there were some workers who accidentally stumbled upon the underground spring that now feeds the hotel's spa facilities!

I missed some more steam-rooms and bubbles in the pool! There were drinking-water from a dispenser. There were some people when we were there. I can believe it can be crowded. After all, the hotel has over 400 rooms and I don’t think there were more than 30-40 beds. I wished there were some individual soaps/shampoos/body-lotions.

Swine-flu "detector" at the airport!

When we arrived to the airport in Budapest, men in white met us and we all had to go through a heat-detector. I take it it was to trace if we had any signs of fever. I have been to several airports the last two weeks and this was the first time I have been scanned for fever.

Corinthia Grand Hotel, Budapest, Hungary

This is a true 5* hotel!

We had booked an executive room with lounge access in the mezzanine/lounge. It cost a little bit more, but I can now say it was worth it. When we checked in we were told to check in at the mezzanine. We went upstairs for check in and while we did the paper-work, we were given a glass of sparkling wine. We were told we had been upgraded to a suit!

The suit was HUGE. We had one bathroom with toilet and one separate toilet. There were a sleeping-room with television and a desk and there were a huge living-room with a television and a desk. In between the two rooms were a hall.




The living-room



The living-room


The hall which connect the two rooms


The bedroom



Our very small, but nice, balcony.



The toiletries. With turn-down we were given new toiletries.



The bathroom








The toilet




When we were going down to the lounge we met a porter. He smiled and wished us a good afternoon. The same happened later, when we met another person from the staff. How nice to meet people who care. However I don’t think they care, but at least they have been tought to pretend to care. I don’t care WHY they are polite and friendly, I just like it.

In the lounge we were given drinks and ”finger-food” and cakes. Because we were tired we decided to not eat dinner, but simply eat there. It’s not enough for a real dinner, but it was enough to not be hungry.

In the halls, reception, public toilets and lounge they played classical music. I liked this. It gave me an even better feeling of being at an old, luxurious place.


From the main-restaurant. The picture is taken from a little bridge at the second floor.


If I am going to Budapest again, I will stay at this hotel. I just LOVE the hotel. Even if it is a big hotel, with over 400 rooms, they have managed to make it personnel. Next time I will also book the executive room, to get the access to the lounge. I would not bother to pay extra to get a suite as I really don't need all the space. After all we have mostly used the bedroom. Some evenings we have used the living-room just because we felt we HAD to use it...:-D