You can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling in Budapest. Following this book's self-guided walks, you'll explore Europe's most underrated city. Soak with Hungarians in a thermal bath, sample paprika at the Great Market Hall, and take a romantic twilight cruise on the Danube. Wander through the opulence of Budapest's late-19th-century Golden Age. View relics of the bygone communist era at Memento Park. For a break, head into the countryside for Habsburg palaces and Hungarian folk villages. Rick's candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants. He'll help you plan where to go and what to see, depending on the length of your trip. You'll learn which sights are worth your time and money and how to get around like a local. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

A celebration of communal bathing—swimming pools, saunas, beaches, ritual baths, sweat lodges, and more—viewed through the lens of architecture and landscape. We enter the public pool, the sauna, or the beach with a heightened awareness of our bodies and the bodies of others. The phenomenology of bathing opens all of our senses toward the physical world entwined with the social, while the history of bathing is one of shared space, in both natural and built environments. In The Architecture of Bathing, Christie Pearson offers a unique examination of communal bathing and its history from the perspective of architecture and landscape. Engagingly written and richly illustrated, with more than 260 illustrations, many in color, The Architecture of Bathing offers a celebration of spaces in which public and private, sacred and profane, ritual and habitual, pure and impure, nature and culture commingle. Pearson takes a wide-ranging view of her subject, drawing on architecture, art, and literary works. Each chapter is structured around an architectural typology and explores an accompanying theme—for example, tub, sensuality; river, flow; waterfall, rejuvenation; and banya, immersion. Offering examples, introducing relevant theory, and recounting personal experiences, Pearson effortlessly combines a practitioner's zest with astonishing erudition. As she examines these forms, we see that they are inextricable from landscapes, bodily practices, and cultural production. Looking more closely, we experience architecture itself as an immersive material and social space, embedded inthe interdependent environmental and cultural fabric of our world.

Discard both your clothes and daily cares and enjoy a time-honoured bathing ritual with Onsen of Japan. For thousands of years, Japanese hot springs (or onsen) have been revered for their relaxing and healing qualities, and this guidebook highlights 140 of the very best places for tourists to visit around the country. Onsen experiences include super sento (large bathing and relaxation centres), local bathhouses, ultra-chic spas, forest retreats and whole towns dedicated to onsen. The how-to guide will help you navigate the complex etiquette and customs of communal bathing, and easy checklists let you know what each onsen offers and whether tattoos are accepted. One thing is for sure, taking a bath will never be the same again.

Complete with maps and extensive advice, this guide to Japan's hot springs is an invaluable resource for anyone travelling to Japan. Easier to get to than many might imagine, Japan's hidden hot springs are among the few remaining repositories of ancient Japanese ambiance and sensibility. Bucolic and charming, they bear little resemblance to the sterile, clinic-like spas of the West or to the concrete jungles of Japan's best-known onsen towns. The hot springs introduced here belong to another time but they are disappearing fast. Discover them before it's too late through this selective, personalized, and authoritative guide. In this spa guide are unbelievable gems that you would otherwise never, ever, find by yourself. Japanese people are often shocked that you found such a place. It's a very concise collection of the "true and traditional" Japanese onsen ryokan. It is for anyone who seeks a traditional experience of what onsen used to be before modernization set in.