In the past, the hammam served as a bath for wealthy nobility and financial tycoons. Today, it is available not only to spa guests, but also to the general public. Guests in the spa use it as a relaxation room and a place to serve massages. Its pleasant environment, beauty and exoticism of the interior can charge the exhausted body with new energy, and thus multiply the positive effects of the unique healing springs.
History
This important building began at the moment when the then owner of the spa – Iphigenia de Castries d’Harcourt, saw a model of a luxurious Turkish bath at the World Exhibition in Paris. She was enchanted by it. Therefore, she traveled to Egypt and asked Viceroy Izmail for permission to build a Hammam in Trenčianske Teplice as well. Izmail complied with her request and sent his court architect with her to Trenčianske Teplice. The Hammam, which means bath in Arabic, was completed in 1888 and this building had no analogue in Europe until then.
Architecture
The first thing that surprises the visitor right at the entrance is the lighting of the Hammam hall from three domes with glazed openings, which creates the impression of a starry sky. On the walls, the architect Schmoranz arranged two colorful rosettes modeled on church rosettes. Each part of the railing on the gallery is carved from a single piece of stone, in the middle of the hall there is a marble fountain. Strips of arabesques wind into three domes that form the vault of the entire building. Two rows of columns carved from fine sandstone separate the hall of the Hammam from the rest cabins, inlaid with decorative tiles, on every other cabin there is a monogram of Iphigenia de Castries.
Today, the Hammam serves as a rest for spa guests after the bath and massages are also provided here. It is accessible to everyone, both as a place for providing spa treatments and as an interesting historical monument. All those who have recovered and will recover, in the Trenčín-Teplice Hammam, can recall the well-known quote: “There is greater happiness than to be healthy, and that is – to be healed”
