Aquae Calidae

Worth a detour

Emperors, Goths, crusaders and a sultan have all bathed at this spring on the edge of Burgas, and you can too. The complex holds the walls of ancient Therma, first-century Roman baths, and the fully restored Ottoman hamam built for Suleiman the Magnificent, now used as a cinema for a 3D film about the place. Next door is a modern bath house fed from the same 41°C spring.

Story

Background

The water brought everyone here. A Thracian sanctuary of three healing nymphs stood at the spring from the first millennium BC. Rome annexed the Odrysian kingdom in the mid-first century AD and building of the thermae began under Nero; by the second century there was a road station called Aquae Calidae, the hot waters, and Septimius Severus held games here. Jordanes records Gothic raiders lingering for days to enjoy the baths. Justinian walled the town, as Procopius reports. In the spring of 680 the emperor Constantine IV broke off his campaign against Asparuh's Bulgars to treat his gout — traditionally at these waters. After 1204 Henry of Flanders burned the place, which the crusaders called La Ferme. Then Suleiman I, cured of gout in his turn, had a new bath built over the ruined pools and issued a decree endowing the springs.

What you see now: an exposition of finds from the site — gold coins and jewellery, lead seals, bathing implements, marble inscriptions — then a virtual reconstruction of the Roman thermae with an interactive floor, then walkways over the real Roman and Byzantine masonry, then the hamam itself, marble-lined and lit, running a film built from 3D mapping.

The bath house opened in October 2022, twenty metres from the spring. The water is weakly mineralised, alkaline at pH 9.73, and comes out at 41 degrees; it is tempered to 33–36 for bathing. The main pool is held at 36 degrees with a twenty-minute limit, there is a sauna at 90 and a steam room at 46, and two hours is the recommended maximum stay. No children under three. There is a free mineral-water fountain in the grounds.