“So, where do young people here go to hang out?” someone had asked from the back of the van. We hadn’t even seen a sheep, let alone another car, for miles. “The baths,” our guide had shrugged. This ...

Kiraly Bath, the oldest thermal bath in Budapest, was built by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century. Communal baths like this one (pictured in 2008) were the public’s main means of washing for ...

Hubert Robert, "Ruins of a Roman Bath with Washerwomen" (after 1766), oil on canvas, 54 x 41 1/2 inches (courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art) Bathing in massive public baths was once a hallmark of ...

For many centuries we have bathed in communal waters. Sometimes for cleanliness but more often for pleasure. Indeed, in ancient Greece, baths were taken in freshwater, or sometimes the sea — which was ...

“Clothes off,” an attendant gently tells me, touching the woven cotton towel I have gripped around my body. We are standing in the sıcaklık, or hot room, of Istanbul's Zeyrek Çinili Hamam. Around us, ...

Watershed Spa will soon have a second destination for communal bathing and holistic wellness in Minneapolis. Watershed founder Nell Rueckl announced Tuesday that she and her team are taking over the ...

This used to be the time of year when the creepy basement of an old factory building in Minneapolis was the place to go if you wanted to make your hair stand on end. But now the industrial space ...