Senior Living: Hidden treasure in Budapest (2024)

The other day a wonderful book arrived in the mail, sent by my relatives from Hungary. Titled Grand 150, it was published in 2023 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Grand Hotel, situated on Margaret Island in the heart of Hungary’s capital city, Budapest.

My relatives knew that the beautifully illustrated book, tracing the history of the Grand Hotel from its opening in 1873 to the present, would have great meaning for me. In fact, I could have been one of the people featured, as my one and only stay in the hotel occurred in the early 1940s when my parents and I spent a summer holiday there, not far from where we lived. Much later, my many holidays on the island were spent at the adjacent Thermal Hotel, but I visited the Grand often.

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Already in my teens I fell in love with Margaret Island. An oasis of greenery, parks, flowers and healing waters in the middle of Budapest, the island, 2.5 kilometres long and half a kilometre wide, is framed by the Danube River. Both the island and the bridge connecting it to the Pest and Buda sides of town are named after Margaret, the daughter of King Bela IV of the House of Arpad.

A word about St. Margaret. Born a princess in the 13th century, she became a Dominican nun to fulfil the promise made by her father, King Bela IV, who offered her up in gratitude for Hungary surviving the onslaught of Mongol hordes. Her brief, saintly life spent on the island earned her sainthood in 1943. Her memory lives on in the ruins of the medieval Dominican church and cloister, which I often visited. Besides enjoying the lovely surroundings, my visits to Margaret Island have a more mundane purpose: taking advantage of the revitalizing treatments available at the Ensana Thermal Spa Hotel. These treatments are based on the island’s mineral-rich waters said to be valuable in the healing process of rheumatism and several other disorders of joints and muscles.

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Drinking the water is said to be a good option for those suffering from stomach problems. Refreshed in body and mind, I recall being ready to enjoy the rest of the day, perhaps go for a walk, sit on the terrace savouring a pastry or hop on the No. 26 bus to take me to the Pest side of town for some shopping on the Boulevard.

While today’s Margaret Island is a hub of activity welcoming visitors with two hotels, two swim baths, an open-air theatre and food stalls, it also has a rich and varied history.

In many ways, the history of the island parallels that of Hungary. Already known in antiquity, it became a hunting ground of kings with the arrival of the Magyars. During the Middle Ages, Dominican churches and cloisters were built. These were abandoned during the Turkish occupation of Hungary in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The island entered a new era during the ensuing years of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The island’s hot springs, already known in Roman and medieval times, were further developed and a new bathing centre opened in 1869. It could be reached by steamboat and then horse-drawn carriage.

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The opening of the bathing centre coincides with the opening of my book’s subject, the splendid new 164-room Grand Hotel. Access to the island became even easier in 1900 with the new Margaret Bridge. But disaster struck once again when the island became a war zone during the siege of Budapest at the end of the Second World War, leaving the island in ruins and the bath centre demolished. Yet the “Grand” survived reconstructed to its original elegance and joined by underground passage to the new, modern Thermal Hotel opened in 1979.

Should you find yourself in Budapest, be sure to check out the city’s hidden treasure, Margaret Island.

— Alice Lukacs writes the Life in the 90s column

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