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Exciting: 2 new Danube beaches and pools can open this summer in Budapest
Officially, you can bathe in the River Danube in Budapest in two places: access to the Római Beach is free for everybody. Meanwhile, the Flava Beach at the Kopaszi Dam near the MOL Tower is quite expensive for ordinary citizens. However, a pool and a beach may open this summer in Budapest, providing an opportunity to bathe in the River Danube, which is becoming cleaner year by year.
There used to be lots of floating pools on the Danube
We wrote before that the River Danube is much cleaner than, for example, the River Seine. Therefore, if Hungary had organised the 2024 Summer Olympics, the swimming marathons could have been held in the Danube without problems, and athletes would not have become sick after swimming in the polluted Seine.
In Budapest, open-air, floating wooden swimming pools on the river have a history, starting in the 19th century and continuing until WWII. Such pools were a common sight from both Buda and Pest. The last wooden swimming pool operated in front of the Hungarian Parliament even in the summer of 1944. During the siege (December 1944-February 1945), it was destroyed, just like the city around it. The Communist leadership did not reestablish them due to the high pollution level of the Danube’s water caused by the factories upstream, the lack of wood and the risk of infection.
Bathing in the Danube: the Római Beach and the Flava Beach
Experts started talking about reopening swimming pools and beaches near the Danube in the 2020s as the water of the Danube became less polluted. An NGO, Valyo, measured water quality in 2024 and found that – except for periods of heavy rains and floods – the water quality of the Danube is acceptable for swimming and bathing. A good example is the Római Beach, which is free and accessible to many during the hottest days of the summer.
Another good example is Flava Beach at the Kopaszi Dam, near the MOL Tower. The environment is perfect there with the panoramic view of the river, but there is an access fee. The beach is operated by a restaurant included in PM Orbán’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz’s BDPST Group. A weekday adult ticket costs HUF 2,500 (EUR 6.2), while the weekend price was HUF 3,000 (EUR 7.5) last summer. Residents, office workers, students, kids, and seniors received a discount. They did not tell us whether they plan to increase those fees, but we know that MOL is organising its bay swimming contest on 21 June at Flava Beach.
The Flava Beach:
Two new Danube beaches and pools this summer
According to Mayor Gergely Karácsony, the municipal leadership would like to make Budapest not only the city of the Danube and baths but also the bathers in the Danube. He said the water quality of the river in Budapest was gradually improving. Therefore, they would create a new free beach this year near Savoya Park, close to the Hosszúréti stream.
He added that the project of reopening floating pools on the Danube is advancing quicker than he thought it would. Experts believe that we could try an environment-friendly Danube pool near the Pünkösdfürdő, in Budapest’s 3rd district, close to the Southern tip of Szentendrei Island.
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