turkish hot bath!

I am wondering what is a Turkish Hot Rooms and Russian steam room or Finn log sauna for that matter.  It all sounds like a variety of saunas.  The biting chill of the Siberian wind must have gotten the better of me, or perhaps I have been intrigued by the constant stream or steam coming out of this old building- The Porchester Centre. The names sound rather posh and chic right? Well, it belongs to the Westminster town council. Among other things, this houses the public library. There is also a gym and swimming pool facility.

A bit of search of the internet brought interesting answers. Definition of Turkish Bath:

Turkish bath n. 1. a type of bath in which the bather sweats freely in a room heated by hot dry air (or in a series of two or three rooms maintained at progressively higher temperatures), usually followed by a cold plunge, a full body wash and massage, and a final period of relaxation in a cooling-room.
(Argh… I am getting more curious!!)

And I put at the end of this entry some interesting excerpts from www.turkishbath.org. It explains all these different saunas! Apparently this is a Victorian thing and they believed that it is good for you- from mental illness to gout and neuralgia! Hmmm seems like a good “treatment” for pain and stress, huh? Shall I give it a try????Argh, if only the currency is in Bath, yes Thai Bath (Pardon the pun), I will definitely head for one of these hot bath.  Hee heee.

And the location of this place? Near Bayswater! Very very near to all those tourist hotels etc, but I bet no one tell them about the good deal at this public spa. Yeah, it is kind of public spa, kind of weird idea.

In 1856, after a break of over fourteen hundred years, the hot dry-air bath was re-introduced into the British Isles.  The history of this Victorian institution, spuriously known as the Turkish bath, has not previously been systematically explored; it has, indeed, been almost totally ignored……
Public steam baths are known to have been in use in the ancient city-state of Sparta, although public bathing, even in Europe, almost certainly predates this. Spartan bathers would remain in the steam until they were sweating profusely and then immediately plunge into an adjacent cold water pool to cool down again.The use of steam baths spread, first throughout Greece, then later, westwards to Rome.
The practice seems to have travelled also in a northerly direction, originating from early Greek settlements in the south of what is now the Ukraine and, thereafter, becoming widespread in much of the area which was, until recently, known as the Soviet Union. As a result, steam and vapour baths are often still referred to as Russian  baths.
The Finnish sauna is often thought to have developed from the Russian bath, but most authorities believe that this unique building, ie, the sauna (wherein the bather is able to change hot dry air into hot wet air and back again at will) developed independently in Finland.