Bánfürdő Termálfürdő és Kemping

Bánfürdő is the thermal bath of Nagybánhegyes, a village of about eleven hundred voters in the southern corner of Békés county, reached from Magyarbánhegyes or from the road linking Mezőkovácsháza and Kaszaper. Thermal water with medicinal effect was first struck in the village in 1971, and a bath has worked on the spot ever since; it is operated by Bánhegyesi Vízszolgáltató Nonprofit Kft. from Erzsébet királyné utca 36. A campsite laid out beside the bath building takes tourists through the whole year, which makes the pair unusual for a settlement of this size, since the bathing weeks themselves are short.

The municipality describes the water as a thermal water of very high mineral content and low hardness, sodium hydrogen carbonate in type, with a high metaboric acid content and bromide, iodide and fluoride. The claims made for it are careful and worth reading as written: the wording attributes the benefits to visitors' own feedback rather than to a clinical finding, and names rheumatic problems, skin conditions and gynaecological complaints. No analysis table, no measured well temperature and no depth figure are published anywhere on the site.

Practical detail is thin but consistent. The bath opens on three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from 10:00 to 21:00. Day tickets are 1,000 forints for adults, 900 for pensioners and students and 700 for children, VAT included. The campsite charges separately and by the item: 1,200 forints an adult, 1,000 for a pensioner or child, 700 for a car, 800 for a caravan, 1,000 for a motorhome, 700 for a tent and 400 for a dog. Visitors who come in August can pair the bath with the village's Paprika Festival, a fixture for years now in a place that lives largely from growing peppers; the other things to see are the eclectic Lutheran church consecrated in 1895, the Chrenka mansion and a glazed ceramic fountain four metres high standing on a mosaic-clad basin eight metres across.