Igali termálfürdő

The bath at Igal, a small town on the edge of outer Somogy, exists by accident: drilling on the old market ground in the 1940s was looking for oil and found hot water instead, rising from 651 metres at 81 °C with an unusually high dissolved mineral content of 10,358 mg per litre. A decision in the 1960s turned the find into a public bath. The first two pools were handed over on 20 August 1962 and winterised three years later, which made the bath a year-round operation; a swimming pool and three children's pools followed in 1967, and the site expanded up the surrounding hillside as weekend crowds grew. The bath has been municipally owned throughout and has held medicinal status since spring 2001.

Today the operator counts thirteen pools. The year-round core is indoor and covered: outdoor thermal pools at 35-38 °C under a curved shade structure built in 2008, an indoor thermal pool at 34-36 °C, an indoor medicinal pool at 36-38 °C, a medicinal-water jacuzzi in the inner courtyard at 35-38 °C, an indoor adventure pool at 32-34 °C and a 30 cm toddler basin. From May to September the summer half opens: shallow family pools at 30-34 °C, a 33 m swimming pool at 23-25 °C, a pool the operator calls the Italian (castiglione) pool, and the landing basin of the slide at 28-32 °C. In winter, from October to the end of April, seven pools stay in use. The sauna world holds four cabins - two Finnish saunas running at roughly 90 °C and 70 °C, with pouring sessions in the hotter one, and two infrared cabins - plus an 18-20 °C plunge pool. The three-lane 50 m giant slide is set into the hillside.

Treatment is a real part of the operation rather than a label: pool bathing, underwater jet massage, weight-bath traction, mud treatment, medicinal massage and group therapeutic swimming are all available with Hungarian health insurance support, at weekends as well as on weekdays, and the commercial list adds lava-stone, lymphatic and cellulite massage, a Parajd salt bath and fish pedicure. The site also runs a full year of events, from night bathing and pool balls to an Oktoberfest and a national sauna season opener. The giant slide runs from Whitsun to mid-September and does not operate in rain or storms.