Hévízi Tófürdő

The Hévíz Lake Bath (Hévízi Tófürdő) is built on stilts over the Hévíz thermal lake in western Hungary, near the western end of Lake Balaton. The operator describes the lake as the largest biologically active natural thermal lake in the world with a peat-mud bed: 4.4 hectares of open water above a spring cave 38 metres down, in a wooded park of 33.9 hectares that shelters it from the wind.

The water

Springs deliver 410 litres a second, so the whole lake renews itself every three days — bathing water that is never still. Warmed geothermally, it does not fall below 22 °C even in winter and reaches 35–38 °C in summer, which is what makes open-air bathing here a year-round thing rather than a summer one.

The operator describes the water as combining carbonic, sulphurous, calcium, magnesium and hydrogen-carbonate properties with a mild radon emanation, and names sulphur as the principal active agent of both the water and the mud. The peat mud lining the bed concentrates the water's chemistry; the operator notes radium salts and reduced sulphur compounds in it.

What it is used for

The stated indications run across musculoskeletal medicine: rheumatic conditions, osteoporosis, degenerative disease of the spine and joints, ankylosing spondylitis, inflammatory joint disease in its chronic phase, aftercare of injuries and orthopaedic surgery, soft-tissue rheumatism, and chronic gynaecological conditions.

The operator also publishes its contraindications — infectious disease, malignancy, heart failure, circulatory disorders, thrombosis, asthma, high blood pressure and pregnancy — and states that bathing in the lake is not recommended for children under twelve, who have a tempered pool with a children's zone at the lakeside instead.

Bathing

The house advice is 20 to 30 minutes in the water at a time, with rests of at least half an hour, to a total of one to one and a half hours a day; without medical advice, thirty minutes. A rheumatology hospital, St Andrew's, works alongside the bath.