Roman Thermae of Varna

A short history

Varna was the Greek city of Odessos, founded around 570 BC by settlers from Miletus. Under Rome it became one of the richest ports on the Black Sea – and in the second half of the 2nd century AD the city built these public baths.

The complex covers more than 7,000 m², and some walls still rise 20–22 metres. Only the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian in Rome and the Imperial Baths of Trier are larger in Europe.

The baths were used for about a hundred years, until the end of the 3rd century. In the Middle Ages craftsmen set up workshops in the ruins. Scholars identified the site in 1906, the Škorpil brothers studied it, and it was fully excavated between 1959 and 1971.

What you will see

• Apodyterium – the changing room, where visitors left their clothes.
• Frigidarium – the cold hall with its pool – the largest open space in the complex.
• Tepidarium – the warm room, a step between cold and hot.
• Caldarium – the hot hall, heated from below.
• Hypocaust – the underfloor heating: hot air from furnaces ran between small brick pillars under the floor. You can still see the pillars.
• Palaestra – the courtyard for exercise and meeting people – the baths were a social centre, with shops and halls, not only a place to wash.