Roman Baths Under a Budapest Train Station

If you venture a short trip from the glitz of central Pest to the Flórián tér light rail station on the city’s less-visited Buda side, you’ll find an archeological gem situated just beyond the shore of the Danube, tucked under a concrete tangle of overpasses in the shadows of massive Soviet-built housing blocks. 

The uniquely positioned light rail station was built over, under, and through a once-bustling fortress that housed thousands of Roman soldiers in the 1st through 4th centuries. Within the camp was a sprawling complex of public baths, with some 50 rooms including a gymnasium, sweat chamber, and cold and hot water pools for the soldiers. An inscription from the year 268 refers to the complex as Thermae Maiores, or “Great Bath.”