Miskolc bath spa resort

You may refresh you self in an exotic bath, if you visit the famous spa of Miskolctapolca. The unusual thermal cave bath is unique all around Europe. Besides the natural cave bath there are indoor and outdoor pools, an aqua park, thermal pools and a small pool for the children. The spa is situated in a large park with a lake.

The water here contains calcium, magnesium-hydrogen-carbonic, iodine, bromide and radon. Thus the spa is recommended for those who have motor disorders, rheums, some backbone problems, or heart and blood system disease.

Besides the healing bath, different kinds of treatments are available, like massages, mud-pack, therapeutic gymnastics, sauna, solarium, etc.

History

Since The Middle Ages, the history of Miskolctapolca was combined with the history of Miskloc, although archeologist found here lots of finds from the former ages.

In the 13C the Miskóc Family built here a monastery. This was the so-known St Peter Monastery. Their burial place was here in Tapolca. From the 14C until the 16C there was a great abbey here, but when the Turks invaded Hungary, this land became deserted. After this time first source which mentions the name of Miskolctapolca dates back to the 19C.

Nevertheless the mildly radioactive waters were utilized as early as the Middle Ages. The first stone buildings were constructed in the 18C. After this, the spa’s history is continuous. In the 20C it became an official resort place. After this, there has been an explosion of hotels, restaurants and bars near the thermal spa. The cave was discovered in the thirteenth and was opened for the public in the fifteenth. Since that time it is one of the most popular spas in Hungary.

Place of interest

After refreshing your self in the spa complex, there are plenty of interesting things to see and do in the surround of Miskolctapolca.

It is worth it to stay here fore a few days, and visit Miskolc and the surrounding towns like Diósgy?r and Lilafüred.

If you like to visit sacred places, don’t miss to take a walk to the famous church tower of Miskolc, which also became the symbol of the town. If you visit the Greek Orthodox Church, which stands near of the Minorite Church of the town, you’ll see the largest iconostasis in Hungary, carved by Miklós Jankovics in the 18C and painted by Anton Kuchelmeister. In the nave there is a Black Mary of Kazan, which was given by Tsarina Catherine, when she passed through Miskolc on her way to Vienna. Also worth a visit the unusual Calvinist church, the so-known Plan Church (Deszka-templom). It was built in 1938, and renovated in 1999 after a fire seriously damaged the church in 1997. If you like Gothic style, don’t miss to visit the great Calvinist Church with a chapel dating back the mid-13C, which stands on the side of the hill overlooking the town.

You may walk around a romantic place if you visit Lilafüred. This enchanting resort area is situated among the wooded and rocky hills, by the side of Lake Hámori. The Palace Hotel and the small village below has a special atmosphere. It is like stepping into a fairy tail.

More historical, but also romantic place is the Medieval Castle of Diósgy?r. It is one of the most important monuments in Hungary from the pre-Turkish times which still remain. There is a great exhibition about the history of the castle in the Castle Museum.

If you would like to know more about Miskolc and its surrounds, visit the Otto Hermann Museum. There you can see exhibitions about local history and folk arts, and a display about the minerals of Hungary. In the Town Gallery, you will see works of contemporary artists’. There are some interesting industrial exhibitions here, for example the exhibition in the old foundry (?skohó).

Besides these, Miskolc has a lively cultural life, so before traveling, try to get to know about festivals or other performances during your stay here!

 

The way from a public pond to an entertainment bath
During the 16 century the hot water spring which was used by the Turks, the emperor’s troops garrisoned nearby, the Greek merchants and the women of the surrounding settlements for bathing, curing and washing became more and more well known and thus more frequented and more widely known.

In 1711 Zsigmond Kollovich, Bishop of Vác, Abbot of Tapolca, brought doctors and experts from Kassa whose task was to support with their research the medical significance of the spa, the water and the surroundings, so much the more because due to the expansion of marshlands, the region had started to lose its population.
Between 1720 and 1723 the plan of a bathing house started to be drafted, comprising of 6 rooms and an inn, which after their construction would make the medicinal water more attractive and more worth visiting for people coming here.
This plan seemed to replace the pond into which the water of the springs had been piped. At the order of the bishop the water was piped into three small ponds, above which small chambers were built so that everybody could enjoy bathing according to their rank and status, alone or with their families in separate pools.

At that time the water of the bath gushed out through a hallow in the rock, it was transparent, smelt of nitrate, its strength made the skin contract, it helped in reducing a high temperature and sharpened the appetite. The water output of the rock was 15 akos (180 gallons) per minute.

In 1837 the place called by then a bathing institution consisted of two parts: an indoor bath and the spring outdoors. The former was used by the well-off, whereas the latter served for meeting the needs of the common people. It remained so only until the beginning of the 20th century when the attendance of Tapolca started to grow perceptibly, which brought about the need for vigorous development.

The 20th century development was marked by a contract between the bishop of Munkács and the city of Miskolc, since the land property was purchased by the city.
This was the first time when the water was drained through a system of pipelines, and they stipulated that no one had the right to establish a privately owned public bath within 2000m of that territory. It was around this time that Miskolc Waterworks was founded under the leadership of István Pazár.
In the 1920-1930s the settlement of Tapolca transformed to a holiday resort, a resort-settlement with a capacity of taking many times the amount of its earlier inhabitants.
In 1934 Miskolc-Tapolca was officially declared a resort, which resulted in large numbers of people visiting the place and accelerated the process of the modernisation of the bath.
The building on the cold-water pond, i.e. the pond bath had to be reconstructed to facilitate meeting the emerging mass demand.
Ferenc Pávai Vajna examined four caves in the territory, in which he found 1.5m deep water with a temperature of 20-28 degrees Celsius in huge hollow systems, a system unique in Europe since there is no other place where karsts would hold such hot water.
The disclosure of the caves began, in the course of which a previously unknown thermal spring was found with water with a temperature of 31.5 degrees Celsius, the output of which was 150 litres per second.
The new bath palace was built in the second half of the 20th century, the old building of the bath was pulled down in 1939, and on 28 May, 1941 the Thermal Bath was opened, which was ranked in 3rd place on the list of European spas.
In 1959 on the left side of the bath building the indoor thermal pools were created, and thus the water area suitable for bathing expanded to form a system of three bathing halls.
Between 1967 and 1970 bathing in the spring area was terminated, and the water of the springs was piped so that it would re-emerge in a dry hollow as a waterfall (massaging shower) falling into the tiled pool of the bath.
The unity of the cave bath and the pond bath ceased by constructing on the place of the latter a pool with a concrete dome connected to the bathing area in the cave through a cut passage.

 

During the development process, started in 1998 and lasting for years, the hall of reception and the two thermal pools were reconstructed. The waterfall (massaging shower) was renewed, by the disclosure of new cave shafts, the water area suitable for bathing increased, and by the enclosure of the park area in front of the main building, a sunbathing garden with a children’s pool was formed. On the left of the main building, a multi-storey building for therapeutical purposes was constructed providing place for a rheumatologic surgery, hydrotherapy, refreshing massage, mud treatment, tangentor, medical massage, electro-therapy, sauna, solarium and a chiropodist’s.

The modernisation of the changing rooms upstairs, the improvement of the machinery of the building compound had finished by the end of 2001. The services offered by the spa are complete with a jacuzzi, heated benches in the bathing area, hydro-massage closets, sluiced swinging doors, a restaurant, a system of safes for safekeeping valuables and a beauty parlour.
In July 2002, the General Management of the National Chief Medical Officer’s Office declared the bath a medicinal bath and classified it into a national category considering its medicinal value; at the same time, the name of the institution changed to Cave and Thermal Medicinal Bath.

By September 2002 the main building and the bathing hall with a relaxing terrace, boarded by a rock wall in the height, had been finished, which, with its water of 120 square m increases the water surface used for entertainment and medical treatment to 1267 square m.

 

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