Rudas Bath Turkish Bath Budapest
Rudas Bath Turkish Bath Budapest

Rudas Bath

Rudas Bath is probably the most popular medieval Turkish bath in Budapest, the City of Baths, famous for its bathing palaces like the Neo-Baroque Szechenyi Bath or the Art Nouveau Gellert Bath.

Rudas Baths
Rudas Baths

What makes Rudas Bath stand out is the modern rooftop panorama pool overlooking the river Danube and its many Budapest river cruise boats, the Parliament, the historical bridges and more. Also, Rudas Bath boasts a 16th-century thermal bath in its core, called the Turkish Bath.

In addition, Rudas Spa offers a special late night bathing opportunity, with its special overnight opening hours every Friday and Saturday (the baths reopen from 10 pm to 3 am, both nights: Rudas Night Bathing is only available with tickets booked online). Finally, Rudas is the only thermal bath in Budapest, which has – at least in a smaller part of the thermal complex –  men only and women only weekdays in certain hours, when aprons are worn by many guests instead of traditional swimwear. You can book your Rudas Bath entries with a nice dinner right in the Thermal Baths for a special extra.

Rudas Bath & Dinner Booking

Opening hours – Rudas Bath Coed

Mon-Sun: 6 am to 8 pm (pools must be left by approx. 7.30 pm)

Budapest Danube river Thermal Bath Rooftop Pool Rudas
Budapest Rooftop Pool – Rudas Bath

The bath is open on holidays, including national and any other holidays, e.g. Christmas, New Year, etc with a mixed set up (open to all genders). That means that the bath is open 365 days. Due to its popularity among locals, expats and tourists alike places are subject to availability at all times. Rudas Bath is a large bath complex, mostly co educated, but one of its several pools,  the Turkish Bath has gender specific days, as seen below.

Turkish Baths Gender Days

Monday: Men only
Tuesday: Women only
Wednesday: Men only
Thursday mornings: Men only
Thursday afternoons: Coed
Friday mornings: Men only
Friday 11:00-20:00: Coed
Friday 10 pm – Sat 3 am: Coed Night Bathing with online tickets
Saturday: Coed
Sat 10 pm – Sun 3 am: Coed Night Bathing with online tickets
Sunday: Coed
National Holidays & Peak season periods: Coed

(hours and settings are subject to change, including the gender specific days in the Turkish Bath inside Rudas Bath. Kindly note that the majority of the bath complex, the saunas, plunge pool, large indoor thermal swimming pool etc. are coed, mixed seven days a week)

Rudas Bath is located at the foot of the scenic Gellert Hill on the Buda side.

Turkish Bath inside the Rudas Bath Complex

Turkish baths in Budapest are amazing oriental monuments with modern-day facilities. Many tourists who visited Turkey will expect to see the dry Turkish sauna as a Turkish bath, but the medieval Turkish baths of Budapest are not steam baths as in modern-day Turkey, but historical Turkish baths with a central octagonal-shaped pool extended with other baths.

That said, you can take a Turkish bath as a steam bath too, as Rudas Bath offers a complex bath and wellness experience, including a hammam (Turkish sauna) as well as an ilidza (Turkish “Ilica” for warm thermal spring). There are 6 thermal baths in Rudas Bath as well as a larger swimming pool.

The knights of St John in the 13th century built their healing center here, then after the Buda Castle siege, when the Ottoman Turkish armies successfully captured the Royal Palace of Hungarians, the Turks started to build a series of Turkish baths along the river Danube, using the deep underground hot spring waters for relaxing, bathing and healing. Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (Sokoli Mustafa), the Turkish pasha, who excelled in the siege of Vienna, and governed the town of Buda for 12 years during the Turkish occupation in Hungary, made sure that the baths are well built (with hard ceramic pipes, and tiles brought from Turkey).

Last updated on Oct 11, 2024

180 comments

  1. Hello,

    I am planning to visit your thermal baths on a Thursday, I would like to know the diference bteween the ALL in ticket – day ticket to all zones and the day thermal ticket.

    thanks a lot in advance

    • Hello Joao,
      the All zone entry will allow you to use the Turkish bath, all pools and the wellness.
      If you choose the wellness ticket you can use the wellness pools, steam rooms and saunas except the Turkish bath.
      Hope we can welcome you at Gellert Spa!

  2. I have one more question. Rudas offer other services such as safty box and Cabin ticket. What is cabin ticket? Is it where we can get changed? How many people can share one Cabin? What if we do not buy cabin service? We need a safe box for our mobilphones for sure. But do not know the difference between safe and cabin.

    Thanks !

    • Hello Amy,
      All tickets are sold with some kind of storage: Cabins or Lockers.
      Lockers are like school lockers so you can store your belongings there or you can rent a cabin to get changed and store your belongings.
      If you choose tickets with lockers, you can get changed in the public men only and women only changing rooms and store your belongings in the lockers. Lockers are closed with the wristband provided upon arrival.
      The cabin is like a tiny room where you can get changed and store your belongings.
      The cabin size is approx. that of a dressing room in a clothes shop and the door has a unique chip code lock, which opens and closes with a special waterproof bracelet: in fact, with the chip incorporated in the wristband bath entry provided at the bath. Please make sure that your door is locked with the silicon wristband before leaving the cabin. As you are wearing the band all the time, it is quite secure if you make sure that the door is not left open.
      Hope we can welcome you at Rudas Baths!

  3. Hi,

    We are a group of 6 people ( one man and 5 women) and would like to visit Rudas on Thursday, 18th, August 2022. There are three types of tickets. Daily ticket to all, Daily thermal ticket and Daily Wellness-spa ticket. I am wondering if Daily thermal ticket is just for Turkish bath? If we are going there on Thursday, should we just buy Daily wellness-spa ticket for all the women and we will not miss anything?

    Thank you!

    • Hello Amy,
      Turkish Bath tickets are also sold separately for HUF 4,500 per person.
      Wellness- spa tickets are also HUF 4,500 per person or you can buy the combined entries for HUF 6,500.
      We recommend the combined tickets so that you can explore the whole bath and try different pools and wellness areas.
      Have a lovely holiday in Budapest!

      • Hi , I have a question about women days, is it available for just Turkish bath or full area?

        • Hello Sima,
          Thank you for your comment.
          On Tuesdays from 6am to 8pm only ladies can visit the Turkish bath area at Rudas Baths. The rest of the baths is open for everyone above 14 years old.
          Enjoy your stay in Budapest!

      • Hi
        I’d like to know when can women and mans can go together in to the baths during weekends

        • Hello Mati,
          Only the Turkish bath area is gender separated on some days. The spa complex is open for everyone every day.
          Turkish bath is coeducated on weekends: both genders can bathe together.

          Please see the Turkish bath gender days below:
          Mon-Wed-Thu all day: Men only
          Friday until 12.45 pm: Men only
          Tuesday: Ladies only
          Fridays from 1pm: Coed
          Weekends: Coed

  4. Hello, we are in Budapest on 13 August. We wanted to buy tickets but they are sole out. Is it possible to buy tickets on the spot for day or night session?

  5. Hello,

    At the rudas spa are you allowed to take photographs from the rooftop/panorama pool? Or your phone has to be locked away the entire time?

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