Blog Gellért Baths are closed: where to go instead
Gellért Baths are closed: where to go instead
Gellért closed for renovation on 1 October 2025 and its official website expects it to reopen in 2028. If you had your heart set on its columns and its indoor pool, here is what each alternative actually offers, so you can pick based on what you were after.
What happened to Gellért
The Gellért Baths, on the Buda side at the foot of the hill that shares their name, have been closed since 1 October 2025. The official website says so and adds just one more line: reopening is planned for 2028. No day, no month, and a forecast for works of this size is exactly that, a forecast.
The building opened in 1918 in the Secession style (Central Europe's version of Art Nouveau) and added its wave pool in 1927, which is why it turns up in so many photos and guidebooks. Before paying for anything that includes it, check the date: until it reopens nobody gets in, and the bath itself suggests Széchenyi while the works last.
Start with what you wanted
The alternatives are not interchangeable, so it helps to know what drew you to Gellért. A grand building and outdoor pools: Széchenyi. History, a dome and the river right there: Rudas. A quiet bath that is more about the water's medical side than about photos: Lukács. All three are run by the same public company as Gellért.
Széchenyi: the big one, outdoors
This is the one Gellért itself recommends. It was built in 1913 in Városliget, the big park on the Pest side, and describes itself as one of the largest spa complexes in Europe.
What sets it apart are its three outdoor pools, open all year: the thermal pool at 38 °C, the leisure pool at 34 °C and the lap pool at 26 °C. Inside there are more than a dozen pools at different temperatures, plus saunas and steam rooms.
It opens every day. The pools run from 7 am to 7.40 pm Monday to Thursday, until 9.40 pm on Fridays, and from 8 am to 7.40 pm at weekends and on public holidays; ticket desks close an hour before the building does. Buy online: when it fills up, online tickets get priority. The desks do not take euros, and a swimming cap is compulsory in the pools that say so.
One important warning: since 1 August 2025 nobody under 14 is allowed in, not even in the outdoor pools. If you are going without children, the essentials are on the Széchenyi page.
Rudas: the dome and the river
If what you liked about Gellért was being on the Buda bank by the water, Rudas is the closest match on location. Its heart is a 16th-century Turkish bath: an octagonal pool under a ten-metre dome held up by eight pillars, with six thermal pools ranging from 16 to 42 °C.
There is also a swimming pool (caps compulsory), a wellness area with a panorama pool looking over the Danube and the city, and saunas. It opens every day from 6 am, and on Fridays and Saturdays also at night, from 10 pm to 3 am, with tickets sold online only.
Two things before you go. The Turkish bath splits its week: Tuesday is women only, Wednesday men only, and on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays it is men only until 10.45 am and mixed after that; weekends are mixed, in swimwear. And it does not admit anyone under 14. According to its own website, the bath is not currently accessible for people with disabilities.
Lukács: the medical one
Also on the Buda side, further north, Lukács leans towards medicine rather than postcards. Its courtyard still holds the marble plaques that patients left to give thanks after being cured, and in 1979 it opened Budapest's first thermal day hospital.
It has three indoor medicinal pools at different temperatures and, outside, a leisure pool with bubble beds, neck showers and a small lazy river. It opens every day from 7 am to 7 pm, and until 10 pm on Tuesdays. It does not admit under-14s either.
If you are travelling with children
None of the three will work: Széchenyi, Rudas and Lukács, like Dandár, do not admit anyone under 14. For families, the company that runs the public baths recommends Paskál, Csillaghegy and Pesterzsébet, which take children all year round under adult supervision. What the rule says and what each of them offers is in the article on minimum ages, and a full two-day plan is in Budapest with children.
Which one, in a line
For a single visit where the open air is the point, Széchenyi. For history, a dome and late nights, Rudas. For an unhurried soak in medicinal water, Lukács. Whichever you pick, check its available services page on the day: pools sometimes close for maintenance, like Széchenyi's lap pool from 5 to 16 October 2026.
To fit the baths into a short trip, Budapest in two days puts them on the second morning, and Budapest in winter at the hour when they feel best.