Your favourite Bath Houses / Saunas anywhere

I'm sure I'm not alone. I consider a trip to the bath house or sauna a CRUTIAL and INTEGRAL part of any GAY-VAY (Gay Vacation) be it with friends or the boyfriend.

Perhaps its because in New York, the bathouses are so sad, and in London, well...not that great.

Here's my favorites, I think the best in the world (in no order).

1. Steamworks, Chicago, IL, United States
The hot tub maze alone is wonderful. If you have a weakness for mid westerners and the like from Indiana, Ohio etc, wow what a place.

2. Badehause, Koln, Germany
I have made trips to Koln just to go here. It's only 3 hours away from AMS by train or car. Beautiful. Koln is a fun gay place. Unlike bathhouses in the states, which is dirty and primarily patronized by 'senior citizens' - badehouse is a gem of 20 somethings and 30 somethings who are just around the "corner"

3. Thermos Day, Amsterdam
A felllow gayvay companion of mine is of the opinion that the companion sauna Thermos Night is better, but I disagree. 4 floors of heaven and debauchery.Next to Badehause, probably the best in Europe. Crowd simmilar to Badehouse, always busy.

I always consult the following guide, in what ever city I'm in, (mostly in German)
http://www.gaysaunen.com

Please add along - where should I go next boys?

Folks, this is your friendly neighborhood n00b moderator speaking.

Please realize that we're part of a larger community, not an island unto ourselves and this is right on the line of what's acceptable.

Where is a good gay sauna? = OK

Where can I get laid? = not OK (in the same way that anyone asking "Where are the best whorehouses?" would have the post deleted.)

Kindly don't cross the line.

Agreed. There's a fine line between couth and uncouth conversation... Let's not color the rest of FlyerTalk with the notion that all gay men want to do is find a new location to screw around in. That's a stereotype we've been fighting for a long time. Don't foster it.


Don't get me wrong: Bathhouses are fun places. It's just not a conversation for FT.



BN

You are certainly not alone in that. I do not travel anywhere that doesn't have a sauna. Seriously. It's an important part of a travel experience. It's where I go in the evening after a day of touring the city. It's where I can meet local people in an environment that does not involve downing pints of beer.

Don't know about New York, but many saunas in the U.S. are quite fun places, especially the fabulous Steamworks in Chicago as you stated. Outside of the U.S., the most fun saunas that I've been to are in Montreal (SDP), London (Chariot on Shoreditch), Paris (ADM), Amsterdam (Thermos Day), Prague, Budapest, Rome, Brussells, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Copenhagen. Madrid was too quiet (I must have gone at the wrong time of day). In Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin, I thought that the Germans weren't terribly friendly.

My hometown Tel Aviv has two fun saunas too!

I'll be checking it out on February 23rd

Some saunas have nights with mixed crowd (men and women), and they're packed on those nights. It's not an exclusively gay thing. If straight people weren't so much more inhibited than gay people, they'd all go to saunas. We have nothing to be embarrassed about in the face of the rest of FT.

Babylon in Bangkok is amongst my personal favorites.

Sydney Steam City... my fave!

Babylon and Steamworks in Chicago has to be on most people's top lists. Nothing like being able to sit down to an inexpensive tablecloth dinner when in a gay sauna like at Babylon.
Deutsche Eiche in Munich is one of my favorites in the world because the sauna is really good AND it has a real clean comfortable inexpensive hotel, a fairly tasty and gay popular full service restaurant serving till late at night with bavarian food even, serving things such as Schweinebraten (roast pork) or if you are lucky German liver dumpling soup and a continental breakfast with European meats, cheeses, breads etc. for the hotel guests. Use to stay at the Munich Marriott but instead of hoofing it all the way to downtown it was cheaper, closer and more fun to stay at Deutsche Eiche. It is a little pricey at around 100 Euro a night now but it was even cheaper back when they Euro was .85 to the U.S. dollar.

It's good. Just remember to wear flip-flops (Australian: Thongs) on your feet... you don't know what you might be stepping in...

I haven't been to the Steamworks in Chicago but The Club Baths in Fort Lauderdale has to be one of the best in the country. The outdoor area with hot tub, pool and lounge chairs is wonderful, especially during balmy nights (with high fences for privacy). Also, the cavernous steam room is a lot of fun.

The bathhouse scene in New York is dreadful. If a bathhouse opened comparable to the Astor Place bathhouse (shut down in the 1980s), the lines would be around the block (and that would just be the straight people trying to get in!)

By the way, I saw a revival of "The Ritz" on Broadway recently (which is about 1970s bathhouse culture) and the mostly straight audience got all the jokes and could not get enough of it.

At any rate, if you are in Fort Lauderdale, you owe it to yourself to give The Club Baths a whirl!

Agree wholeheartedly on Steamworks in Chicago (Berkeley is good too), Club in Ft. Lauderdale (tho sometimes can be a bit of attitude), Thermos day in Amsterdam, Chariots Shoreditch in London, Babylon in Bangkok (if you like Asians/Thais).

Went to a great one in Vienna, can't remember the name.

Oh, and there's also Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas

You haven't lived until you've been to the baths in Vienna. Kaiserbrundl. There's actually a Hungarian porn producer who films there. They have this insane architecture--it's like a survey of architectural history in one building. Classical, Moroccan, Renaissance, Baroque, you name it. I was laughing and marvelling at the decor so much I could hardly focus on anything else. They also serve food in the restaurant near the entrance.

I think Steamworks in Chicago is a little overrated. Excellent, but not as good as people make out. While the saunas in San Diego are not exactly spectacular facilities, the clientele is the most remarkable I've seen anywhere.

There's also an interesting one in Venice Mestre. You have to take the train over to the mainland, and then find it, which can be difficult as it's well-hidden. Not big, but very stylish. Very modern, Memphis-ish design. Soft music and mood lighting in the steam room. There were colored lights that gradually faded and changed. Quite atmospheric.

Montreal, of course, is infamous for its many saunas.

Absolutely this is my favorite spa! Most relaxing. Could spend the entire day there.

Oops. I was about to say that I'd never been to a bathhouse until I saw this post.

Who knew...I guess I had.

Totally agree. kevinsac would never post in this thread, with the potential for giving the wrong impression of myself.

However, give me sometime to log out and then log in again under a fake name! j/k

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8707/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/141)

Anyone been to the Russian and Turkish baths in NYC? Any feedback, from a therapeutic point of view or otherwise?