BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - If you find yourself in hot water in Budapest, handle the situation the way the locals have done for the last few thousand years: relax.

The hot water I'm talking about awaits at more than a half dozen spas across Hungary's capital. The same way Parisians meet over a cafe table or Finns huddle in a family sauna, Budapest's denizens habitually take to public baths for the chance to refresh and recharge in a convivial atmosphere. As if a hot soak wasn't tranquilizing enough, this national pastime often concludes with a tension-releasing massage.

With or without the rub-down, though, a steaming bath in Budapest is recommended for more than just social and psychological benefits. Hungarian doctors resolutely claim that calcium, magnesium, potassium, fluoride, sodium and other minerals found in thermal spring water have curative powers for all manner of muscular ailments.

Whether you go for the sake of body or soul, fees at historic and modern baths in Budapest are as soothing as the water. Thanks to government subsidies and a currency that is devalued monthly against the U.S. dollar (owing to Hungary's fast galloping 20% annual inflation rate), bathhouse admission tickets rarely cost more than 500 forints (about $2.75 at current exchange rates). More incredibly, a 15-minute massage -- your choice of "wet" with soap, or "dry" with talc -- costs the same 500 FT.

Budapest's baths open at 6 a.m., when downtown office workers congregate for a moment's peace before the day's mayhem; they close by 7 p.m., as those with newly-invigorated major muscle groups -- and appetites to match -- fan out to restaurants and cafes.

Paris on the Danube

Budapest was established in 1873 when hilly, upscale Buda on the right bank united with the more level, working class Pest on the left. As one of two capital cities in the so-called "Dual Monarchy" of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (the other was Vienna, about 150 miles upstream), Budapest flourished as a commercial and cultural center at the end of the 19th-century.

Sometimes called the "Paris of the East," Budapest largely retains its fin de siecle character, despite a long siege by the Soviet Red Army against Nazi occupiers in 1944-45. Relatively few modern buildings have risen to disturb the cosmopolitan elegance of the predominant Art Nouveau architecture. In 1988, UNESCO protected the historic cityscape by placing it on the World Heritage List. Trolley cars trundle through traffic down narrow streets lined with cafes. At night, the impressive Parliament building -- a neo-Gothic behemoth that stretches more than 800 feet -- is illuminated with floodlights for a romantic backdrop to riverside strolls. Traditional restaurants serve flavorful paprika-flavored dishes to the strains of Gypsy music.

Even when under Soviet domination, Budapest enjoyed a reputation for openness and liveliness unknown elsewhere in the Eastern bloc. When the lid came off in 1989, more than two million liberated citizens of Budapest scrambled to close any economic and cultural gaps with the West. Hungary has recently been invited to join NATO, and will likely also join the European Union soon. Rinky-tink East German automobiles still put-put around the city, but they are quickly being outnumbered by Audis, Mercedes and Fords. Around the thriving shopping district surrounding Vaci Utca, trendy bistros and designer clothing stores attest to the meteoric rise of a yuppie class.

Palace Spa

Touring Budapest from one extravagant tub to another yields rich insights into the city's history and character. Overlooking the Danube on the Buda side at the bottom of Gellert hill, the upscale spa in the Hotel Gellert (XI Kelenhegyi ut 2-6; tel. 185-2200; $236 d.o., includes use of the adjacent Gellert baths) is a sybarite's palace. Constructed in 1913, the Gellert has clung stubbornly to traditions of style and service dating from the era of Emperor Franz Joseph. In keeping with its high standards, Gellert's admission price is fairly extravagant by Budapest norms (1000 FT or about $5.50), though not for much the many wide-eyed international visitors.

Spanish high school students in backpacks and hiking boots and Japanese businessmen alike clot together inside the Gellert lobby to admire the spa's flamboyant Art Nouveau details: Swans spread their wings boldly across a mosaic floor, and flora and fauna throng colorfully over a gallery of stained glass windows. At the centerpiece atrium, mineral water gushes from the mouths of blue dragons into a swimming pool edged by a colonnade of amber porcelain.

Pleasantly Parboiled

The elegant bric-a-brac is undoubtedly impressive, but I've come to the Gellert to relax other parts of my body than just my eyes. I thread a path through the gawking crowd to the entrance of the men's baths. An attendant in hospital whites hands me a towel and canvas loincloth, then leads me to a ward of dressing compartments hung with heavy curtains. From his waist hang a ring of keys and a chunk of white chalk. In a single, smoothly-executed motion, he snaps my compartment's curtain to one side, then scrawls the time with his chalk on a slate oval above the rod. There is a locker for my clothes, and a simple cot where I can plan to recover after a rub-down.

Further within the spa complex lies Gellert's thermal baths in room that looks like a museum exhibit with a flooding problem. The walls are covered in blue and green majolica tiles adorned with tulip and honeysuckle. Figures of cherubs embrace above dolphin-head fountains. I step into one of two semi-circular pools and sink up to my neck with a sigh in simmering 36°C (96.8°F) water. Men of all ages, sometimes huddled in groups of two and three, relax in similar form. A meditative silence seems the preferred way to bathe, though white noise from constantly running water lends privacy to any occasional remarks.

American culture -- in spas or anywhere, really-- emphasizes the individual, but the Hungarian spa experience moves to a communal rhythm. Soaking in the Gellert pool, I wish more than usual for when I'm away from home that my friends could join me. Photographer friend Derek Szabo had often regaled me with stories of bath-hopping adventures in Budapest with his father and various relatives. I could see now how the hot mineral water was for more than personal gratification: it also could act wonderfully as a natural and healthy medium for social interaction.

Once pleasantly parboiled, I proceed to take a turn on the massage mat with Gabor, who wears coke bottle eyeglasses and is legally blind. This will be no New Age rubdown with aromatic oils and Windham Hill music softly playing in the background. After pressing more flesh than any politician ever dreams of, Gabor has honed his technique to a no-frills, all-business approach. For a long quarter hour, his strong hands vigorously knead me with soap lather from shoulders to feet until I think he could roll me up like a ball of pastry dough and fold me into a croissant. After 35 years of service, Gabor retired from the Gellert a year ago.

Genuine Turkish Bath

The classy and civilized Gellert contrasts sharply with the exotic atmosphere at Rudas (I Dobrentei ter 9; tel. 156-1322; men only). Near the white suspension span of the Elizabeth Bridge, the riverfront entrance divulges a drab, late-19th-century public bathhouse with swimming pool, but these first architectural impressions prove misleading. Hidden inside is a well-preserved Ottoman monument completed in 1578 by Pasha Sokoli Mustapha when the Turks ruled vast swaths of Hungarian territory.

Adopting the casual attitude of an habitue, I accept my towel and canvas loincloth from the Rudas attendant as a matter of routine. The ancient section of Rudas is entered through a portal arch pinched at the top like the toe of a genie's shoe. Inside, green marble columns support a low dome above an octagonal pool at the room's center. Each step in the dimly-lighted roseate granite hall leads me deeper into a steamy fog. Cut into the dome overhead are small hexagons plugged with blue, yellow and red stained glass. Once immersed in tingling water, I stare at these twinkling until I entered a kind of blissful trance. In Turkish Islamic tradition, entranced dervishes whirl like tops to achieve an ecstatic union with God and His creation. The sort of trance I now found myself in demanded no physical effort, though it shouldn't be surprising that my thoughts had wandered toward the spiritual.

The Muslim Turks who constructed the timelessly simple, chapel-like bathhouses like Rudas, drew on traditional architecture motifs from mosques. The irony strikes me that such a secular, sensual activity as soaking in hot water sprang from a strict Islamic religious code requiring observant Muslims to bathe five times daily before prayers.

Hot water is like paprika: some people like only a little on their plate, others want a lot. By now, I'm ready to up the ante. In each of the corners of the hall surrounding the main pool at Rudas, four smaller pools range in temperature from 28°C (82.4°F) to 40°C (104°F). I dare to enter the warmest of these, and experience what a lobster must feel when sliding into the pot.

Where the walls meet at a right angle, the stone is scooped out and etched with unusual stalactite carvings that recall a common feature in mosques. Along with me in the 40° pool is an elderly man who keeps back to a fountain as scalding water splashes freely off his shoulders. During off-peak hours in mid-morning and afternoons, pensioners like him predominate at Budapest's bathhouses. This Rudas regular must be desperately seeking relief from arthritis or rheumatism. As for me, the relief I find is all mental: the hushed atmosphere and exotic surroundings provide a welcome escape from the late 20th-century.

Hippos Swear By It

The Turks weren't the first to exploit Budapest's liquid resources -- credit goes to the Romans on that score -- but they did permanently engrave an aquatic obsession on the city's psyche. Since the Middle Ages, the district north of the landmark Szechenyi Chain Bridge has been known as Vizivaros or "Water Town" and is home to the city's oldest Turkish bathhouse, Kiraly (II Fo utca 82-86; tel. 202-3688; men: Monday, Wednesday and Friday; women: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday until noon).

A quartet of cupolas that might have been plucked from a mosque announces Kiraly from a distance. Constructed from 1566 to 1570 under orders of Pasha Arshlan and Pasha Sokoli Mustapha, his successor, the ancient bathhouse hall and dome strongly recall those at Rudas, but on a smaller scale. Even though admittance is limited to 80 bathers at one time, the space seems better suited for half that number.

For elbow room in Budapest, there's no better place than the City Park (Varosliget). At the end of mansion-lined Andrassy utca in Pest, hilly Buda's flat, sprawling counterpart, Varosliget is Budapest's largest park and was completed in 1896 to celebrate the millennium of the Magyar conquest. Inside the park, keepers at the city zoo credit the local thermal spring water for a higher than average fertility rate among hippos. Unless you're planning a family, then, don't drink the water at the City Park's grand Szechenyi Bath (XIV Allatkerti korut 11; tel. 121-0310).

Built from 1909-1913, Szechenyi Bath recalls a grand Hapsburg estate, from enormous chandeliers in the lobby to Baroque sculptures of Neptune and Venus surrounding several large courtyard pools. Like the Chain Bridge, Szechenyi was named for Count Istvan Szechenyi (1791-1860) who vigorously promoted Budapest's development and was a champion of government reform. It's no surprise that Western businessmen are rumored to be interested in buying Szechenyi Bath and making it a private club.

Lasting Traditions

The future of Budapest's spas may be glimpsed at the sleek Helia Thermal Hotel (XI Karpat ut. 62-64; tel. 270-3277; $150-200 d.o.). Built by a Finnish consortium in 1990 and now owned by the Danubius hotel chain that also runs the Gellert, Helia lacks the latter's Art Nouveau liveliness but it compensates with contemporary amenities such Jacuzzi and fitness room, as well as swimming pool, sauna, thermal baths, and steam bath. Staff dressed in doctor's coats can suggest a wide variety of the cutting edge treatments for muscle ailment including hydrotherapy, electrotherapy, and water aerobics.

The technology and the terminology has changed considerably since the Romans built aqueducts and conduits to ensure a constant supply of piping hot aqua for their prized bathhouses in what they called it "Aquincum". What hasn't varied is a Budapest tradition a long hot soak in thermal waters can do wonders for body and soul.

For information about travel to Budapest and throughout Hungary, contact the Hungarian National Tourist Office 150 E. 58th Street, 33rd floor, New York, NY 10155, tel. 212-355-0240, fax. 212-207-4103. Visit their website at www.gotohungary.com.

Malev Hungarian Airlines flies direct to Budapest from JFK; for fares and schedules, contact Malev Hungarian Airlines, 630 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1900, New York, NY 10111, tel. 212-757-6480, fax. 212-459-0675. On the West Coast, Malev is located at 1888 Century Park East, Suite 410, Century City, CA 90067, tel. 800-262-5380, fax. 310-286-1921. Visit their website at www.malev.hu/ew/angol/default.asp.