Text & photos Copyright © Estrella Azul

IN ROMANIA, we recently had two bank holidays fall during the same work-week: May 28th celebrated the Orthodox Pentecost Monday and June 1st was Children’s Day.

For the Children’s Day holiday we planned for a bathing-suit kind of day, so we headed to Hajdúszoboszló, Hungary (often referred to as Hajdú for short).

Hajdúszoboszló is a town in East Hungary, about 230 km away from my city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. We left at 6:30AM and, with waiting in line at customs included, made the trip in about four hours in slightly heavier-than-regular traffic.

We walked around town for a while in the evening. Looking up, we noticed a hot air balloon. Turns out the airport of Hajdúszoboszló offers various air recreation activities (see #6), including hang gliding, flying in hot air balloons, sightseeing flights and parachuting.

Our destination within the town of Hajdúszoboszló was Hungarospa, the largest spa complex of Europe. I was truly impressed with the complex and everything it offered. Its major attractions consist of thermal baths, open-air spa, the Aquapark and the “Árpád” swimming pool.

We placed our lounge chairs near the Thermal Baths entrance and explored from there.

There’s a big lake with a restaurant on a small island, and a beach island. The water is full of fish from small to large and all sizes in between! One can opt for water bike rides or rent a paddle boat.

Hungarospa offers programs such as water exercises, wellness activities and a gym. Festivals and concerts are held on a regular basis. Being mindful of their Romanian guests who were celebrating Children’s Day, there was a special show for kids in the afternoon the day we visited.

People who don’t want to rent a lounge chair from the spa can set themselves up on the lawn on their own blankets and chairs.

Aside from an on-site hotel, known as Thermal Hotel, the place also has two camping spaces: Thermal Camping with mobile houses and Hajdú Camping with parcels for tents, camping vans and some accommodation in camping houses. There is easy access from these to the spa grounds.

The Aquapark has a separate entrance fee, and discounted tickets can be purchased if one wants to visit both the spa and the aqua park.

Given we were more interested in relaxing by the pool, we opted for the simple spa ticket which gave us access to the thermal baths, open-air spa and the indoor swimming pools.

There’s also an Aqua-Palace featuring indoor “adventure” pools on the spa premises.

The “Árpád” swimming pool is an Olympic-size indoor swimming pool. Several swimming competitions are held there year-round. There are also several training pools alongside it, which are perfect for children or those still learning to swim.

For good swimmers, there’s also an outdoor swimming pool resembling the Olympic-size one.

The Thermal Baths consist of three indoor and four outdoor pools containing effervescent sulfur water of varying temperatures. I loved trying out the different water temperatures to see which one was nicer.

I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of sulfur smell—their air-conditioning system works very well.

Guests can get more than forty different kinds of treatments based on the controlled and qualified thermal water, under medical supervision. Charges for the latter are displayed throughout the premises.

The Open-Air Spa, accessible from 1st May until 30th September each year, is what we were there for. With water of varying temperatures, the open-air spa features thirteen different-size and different-depth pools. They range from swimming, wave pool, bubble pool to children’s pools and, from what I could see, any generation could find their favorite(s).

I tried most of them! My favorite animal statue was the whale tail peeking out of the Mediterranean beach pool, but the turtles and hippo from the kiddo pools were cute, too.

Before last year when I learned to swim (and I use the term “swim” very loosely) at the Cojocna salt lakes, I could literally count on my fingers from one hand how many times I’ve been inside a swimming pool in my entire life. So, I was both excited and scared to be at Hungarospa. There are lifeguards nearby everywhere, so I was fine to even be on my own in the swimming pools.

I still didn’t learn to swim but had a blast nonetheless.

You can find most anything you’d like on the spa premises. Good food, drinks, souvenirs, and a variety of pool-side and beach items from clothing to towels, inflatable pool floats and everything in between.

I got an inflatable half-slice of Kiwi fruit to be able to float in the pool and sunbathed pool-side while my friends took to swimming.

The wave-pool is one of the biggest open-air attractions. My boyfriend said that when he first visited Hajdú years and years ago, he was puzzled as to why so many people were piling into that pool and just standing there waiting. The answer?

The wave machine is fired up every couple of hours (the schedule can be found near the pool) and people can jump around in the waves for ten-or-so minutes. I enjoyed it myself but, as a disclaimer, we didn’t go into the deep end and my boyfriend held me to make sure I didn’t get too thrown around by the waves.

Hungarospa is perfect for a weekend getaway, or simply a day-trip. I believe that my non-swimmer self highly recommending this place is reason enough for you to try it when you next visit Hungary.

And if you’re a swimmer, I’m positive you’ll love it even more than I did!

———

Travel tip: One thing to note if you’re traveling by car during the weekend or the first day of a long weekend in Romania is that the roads will be full. It’s best to plan your one-day trips for the first day of the weekend and leave later in the morning, and for the second day of three-day weekends which avoids traffic altogether.

———

Estrella Azul is a young emerging writer, passionate about reading, floral art and photography, with an artistic personality and a soulful outlook on life. She is a Hungarian girl living and writing from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, the capital of historical region Transylvania. Estrella is our European correspondent, she currently serves as the photo editor here at Milliver’s Travels, and she dreams of embarking on a round-the-world trip. To read more of her creative writing, her thoughts and daily happenings, visit Life’s a stage – WebBlog©. Read more of her stories on Milliver’s Travels by visiting Estrella’s story index.