Going to a Bath House Here, Without Guessing

A bath house is one of the few experiences here that a visitor can join without being shown it. There is no ticket, no tour and nothing to photograph. You go in, you get hot, somebody washes you properly, and afterwards you sit for a while.

This page describes what that hour actually contains, and what to ask before you go. It deliberately names no particular bath house, and the reason for that is further down.

What it is, and what it is not

Imagine a hot room, water, soap and somebody whose job is scrubbing visitors and neighbours alike. That is the entire idea, and it has not changed much in several centuries.

It is not a treatment menu, and it is not a quiet room with music playing. It is an ordinary neighbourhood business, and part of what you are paying for is permission to sit around afterwards.

Men and women

Most places are not mixed. Some are men only. Others run separate hours or separate days, and a few have two entrances and two halves.

That arrangement belongs to the building rather than to a rule we can print for you. Ask before you travel across the city, or ask us to ask.

The order of an hour

You undress in a cubicle and wrap yourself up. Then you sit in the heat until you have stopped being in a hurry, which usually takes longer than visitors expect.

Then comes water, soap and the scrub. Then more water, and then you dry off, dress slowly and drink tea. The tea is not a nice extra at the end. It is the end.

The scrub

The scrub is done with a rough mitt, and it is considerably firmer than anything a hotel would call a massage. Most visitors are surprised the first time, and then ask for it again.

If it is too hard, say so immediately. Gentler is a perfectly normal request, and nobody minds hearing it.

What to take

Take swimwear if you would rather wear something, flip flops, and something to tie your hair back. Ask what the establishment hands out, because towels, wraps and slippers vary from door to door.

Take a little cash even if you have a card. Our money page explains why we say that about almost everything outside a hotel.

What we will not tell you

We will not tell you that a bath cures, treats or fixes anything. People here have their own views about heat and steam, and those views are not ours to publish as facts.

Go because it is warm, because the scrub is good and because an hour of doing nothing is worth having. If you have a health question, ask a doctor rather than a travel agency. It is the same line we hold on the oil baths at Naftalan.

The price question

We will not print a price on this page. Prices at the door change regularly, and a figure typed today would already be wrong by the time you read it.

Ask what is included before you go in. Washing yourself, a wash with a scrub, and a scrub with a rub down afterwards are three different things at three different prices.

An old building is not always a bath

The walled city contains old bath buildings, and not all of them are baths any more. Several are historic monuments. Others have been converted to something else entirely.

So do not aim yourself at a particular dome you noticed on a map. Send us your dates instead and we will find out what is open and working. That is a five minute job for us and a wasted afternoon for you.

A hotel spa is a different afternoon

A hotel spa is quiet, booked, and priced like a hotel. A neighbourhood bath house is louder, cheaper and full of people who came for the same reason you did.

Both are perfectly good. They are simply not substitutes for each other, and knowing which one you are walking into prevents the disappointment.

When to go

Go on a day with nothing scheduled after it. A bath house at four o’clock and a restaurant at seven is an excellent evening. A bath house and then an airport run is a miserable one.

It also answers a cold day in the mountains better than almost anything else. That is why it belongs at the end of a walking day rather than the beginning.

Manners

Nobody expects a visitor to know the routine, and somebody will usually show you. Watch what everybody else does and copy it, which is the general rule for politeness here.

Do not photograph anyone. This is the one room in the country where the phone stays in the locker, and no photograph is worth the look you will get.

Arranging it

Tell us your dates and who is going. We will check what is open, what the arrangement for men and women is that week, and how to get you there.

We will not book you a bath sight unseen and call it a treatment. We will find out what is true this month and tell you plainly.