Miskolctapolca

Miskolctapolca to 1267 square Tapolca is a very old settlement. Anonymus already mentioned the name.Böngör and his son Bors and their descendants used to offer a sacrifice for their gods at the head of the hot spring. From this tradition stemmed the great Bors-Miskoucy clan which kept this place as their burial site after the adoption of Christianity and for this burial purpose a Benedictine monastery was built in honour of Péter and Pál. This monastery was already mentioned in charts in 1241. Tapolca is suitable not only for relaxing and cheerful entertainment but it offers healing as well. The hot springs flowing at the foot of the Castle Hill with radioactive qualities have been famous for their healing power for centuries. The water is suitable for cardiac disorders, artery and circulatory diseases, problems with stomach and the illness of the sympathetic nervous system. The Cave-bath opened in 1959 lessens the pain of those people who suffer from asthma. The lake used for rowing on the side of the forest is surrounded by trees in leaf and varied with islands, which contribute to visitor\'s comfort. Tapolca holds some of the Miskolc Summer\' events from year to year.

The cave bath in Miskolctapolca

During the 16 century the hot water spring which was used by the Turks, the emperor’s troops garrisoned nearby, the Greek merchants and the women of the surrounding settlements for bathing, curing and washing became more and more well known and thus more frequented and more widely known.

In 1711 Zsigmond Kollovich, Bishop of Vác, Abbot of Tapolca, brought doctors and experts from Kassa whose task was to support with their research the medical significance of the spa, the water and the surroundings, so much the more because due to the expansion of marshlands, the region had started to lose its population.

Between 1720 and 1723 the plan of a bathing house started to be drafted, comprising of 6 rooms and an inn, which after their construction would make the medicinal water more attractive and more worth visiting for people coming here.

This plan seemed to replace the pond into which the water of the springs had been piped. At the order of the bishop the water was piped into three small ponds, above which small chambers were built so that everybody could enjoy bathing according to their rank and status, alone or with their families in separate pools.

At that time the water of the bath gushed out through a hallow in the rock, it was transparent, smelt of nitrate, its strength made the skin contract, it helped in reducing a high temperature and sharpened the appetite. The water output of the rock was 15 akos (180 gallons) per minute.

In 1837 the place called by then a bathing institution consisted of two parts: an indoor bath and the spring outdoors. The former was used by the well-off, whereas the latter served for meeting the needs of the common people. It remained so only until the beginning of the 20th century when the attendance of Tapolca started to grow perceptibly, which brought about the need for vigorous development.

The 20th century development was marked by a contract between the bishop of Munkács and the city of Miskolc, since the land property was purchased by the city.
This was the first time when the water was drained through a system of pipelines, and they stipulated that no one had the right to establish a privately owned public bath within 2000m of that territory. It was around this time that Miskolc Waterworks was founded under the leadership of István Pazár.

In the 1920-1930s the settlement of Tapolca transformed to a holiday resort, a resort-settlement with a capacity of taking many times the amount of its earlier inhabitants.
In 1934 Miskolc-Tapolca was officially declared a resort, which resulted in large numbers of people visiting the place and accelerated the process of the modernisation of the bath.
The building on the cold-water pond, i.e. the pond bath had to be reconstructed to facilitate meeting the emerging mass demand.

Ferenc Pávai Vajna examined four caves in the territory, in which he found 1.5m deep water with a temperature of 20-28 degrees Celsius in huge hollow systems, a system unique in Europe since there is no other place where karsts would hold such hot water.
The disclosure of the caves began, in the course of which a previously unknown thermal spring was found with water with a temperature of 31.5 degrees Celsius, the output of which was 150 litres per second.

The new bath palace was built in the second half of the 20th century, the old building of the bath was pulled down in 1939, and on 28 May, 1941 the Thermal Bath was opened, which was ranked in 3rd place on the list of European spas.

In 1959 on the left side of the bath building the indoor thermal pools were created, and thus the water area suitable for bathing expanded to form a system of three bathing halls. Between 1967 and 1970 bathing in the spring area was terminated, and the water of the springs was piped so that it would re-emerge in a dry hollow as a waterfall (massaging shower) falling into the tiled pool of the bath. The unity of the cave bath and the pond bath ceased by constructing on the place of the latter a pool with a concrete dome connected to the bathing area in the cave through a cut passage.

During the development process, started in 1998 and lasting for years, the hall of reception and the two thermal pools were reconstructed. The waterfall (massaging shower) was renewed, by the disclosure of new cave shafts, the water area suitable for bathing increased, and by the enclosure of the park area in front of the main building, a sunbathing garden with a children’s pool was formed. On the left of the main building, a multi-storey building for therapeutical purposes was constructed providing place for a rheumatologic surgery, hydrotherapy, refreshing massage, mud treatment, tangentor, medical massage, electro-therapy, sauna, solarium and a chiropodist’s.

The modernisation of the changing rooms upstairs, the improvement of the machinery of the building compound had finished by the end of 2001. The services offered by the spa are complete with a jacuzzi, heated benches in the bathing area, hydro-massage closets, sluiced swinging doors, a restaurant, a system of safes for safekeeping valuables and a beauty parlour.
In July 2002, the General Management of the National Chief Medical Officer’s Office declared the bath a medicinal bath and classified it into a national category considering its medicinal value; at the same time, the name of the institution changed to Cave and Thermal Medicinal Bath.

By September 2002 the main building and the bathing hall with a relaxing terrace, boarded by a rock wall in the height, had been finished, which, with its water of 120 square m increases the water surface used for entertainment and medical treatment.

Source: www.miskolc.hu