Christopher Gough has won a contest sponsored by The Telegraph newspaper for his story of the perfect holiday in which he recounts his visit to Budapest with his autistic daughter.
“Abigail wore a huge smile,” he said. She was beaming from ear to ear. “It’s warm,” she purred. “It’s like a big bath,” he wrote after taking her to the local bathhouse.
"We knew the pools and spas would be a distraction but we couldn’t possibly have foreseen to what extent,” he wrote.
“It was our first afternoon and we tore Abigail away from a Hungarian cartoon series and gerrymandered her towards the baths. The mosaic floors and echoing chambers stirred her imagination and by the time she arrived at the side of the first ornately tiled pool, she was animated. However, it was when she leapt into the water and then surfaced with that huge grin that we knew we’d hit the jackpot,” he added.
“We’d chosen the right hotel, too. It had the biggest, most popular public spa in the city. Apart from the pool Abigail now basked in, it boasted an ornate Roman-style main pool, separate male and female parlours (each with even hotter mini-pools), an outdoor pool with a wave machine, an outdoor Jacuzzi and a luxury sauna. What’s more, we didn’t have to queue with all the non-residents to enjoy the facilities. We had our own secret passage that ran from our floor, through the fragranced massage area and down a twisting iron staircase. We could even don our swimwear and bathrobes in our hotel room,” he added.
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