Hotel Gellért

The Art Nouveau thermal baths at the Gellért, marble columns, mosaic floors, and an outdoor wave pool that remains a small marvel of early twentieth-century engineering, are among the most photographed in a city that takes its bathing culture more seriously than almost anywhere else on earth. The hotel opened in 1918 at the foot of Gellért Hill, drawing on thermal springs that have been in continuous use since the 13th century, long before anyone thought to build a hotel around them. Its position on the Buda side of the Danube, directly below the floodlit Citadella, gives it one of the most dramatic settings of any hotel in Central Europe. 234 rooms.