Palić: a spa built for a lake no one swims in now

Palić didn't become a spa because of its park or its Art Nouveau, but because of its water: the lake was salty, and its water and mud were used as a cure as early as the eighteenth century. Today that very water is the one thing here nobody uses — and the reason isn't just nature, but that the lake has been taking Subotica's treated wastewater for half a century.

The lake as a cure

In 1780 the chief physician of Bács County, János Gottfried Libertraut, pointed to the high salt content of the lake water, and with it to its healing value; salt was once even extracted from the lake. It is recorded as a healing lake in 1823, and the first chemical analysis of the water was made in 1856. Between those dates, in 1845, the Donja Trščara inn went up on the shore, and the bathing resort starts with it. Everything that came after — the hotels, the railway, the buildings of 1912 — followed guests who came for the water.

The buildings of 1912 are bathing buildings too. Marcell Komor and Dezső Jakab, the same practice that gave Subotica its town hall, built Palić the Women's Lido, a timber pavilion right on the water; the men's lido lay across the headland. These were designed for getting into the lake, not for looking at it — which is why they show best what has changed since.

The lake as receiving water

Until the 1970s Subotica's wastewater flowed into the lake with no treatment at all. The result is well known: in 1970 the lake nearly died of eutrophication, in 1971 it was drained and dredged, and in 1975 the town's treatment plant started up. What didn't change then is where the water goes: according to the town's water utility, Lake Palić is still the receiving water for Subotica's treated wastewater, and a 'sensitive' one at that — a lake prone to eutrophication.

So water quality isn't one number. After a clean-up project finished at the end of 2022, total phosphorus moved from class five to class three, but cyanobacteria stayed in class five. A measurement in June 2025 put the lake back in class five and swimming was banned, and in July 2026 Subotica's Public Health Institute repeated that swimming is not recommended: blue-green algae make up about eighty per cent of the phytoplankton, and the high pH and ammonia irritate skin and eyes.

Today — the lake is looked at, not entered

If the water is why you're coming

Anyone coming to Palić to swim is coming to the water park that opened on 15 September 2023, with ten pools over 44,000 square metres. Anyone coming for the lake is coming to look at it: from the park, from the Great Terrace, from the path around the shore. That isn't a lesser Palić, just a different one from the Palić it was built to be — and better learned before the trip than with a towel on the Women's Lido.

GuideAll of Palić — the zoo, the bike, wine and when to come:Palić →

GuideThe town whose water the lake takes, and whose Art Nouveau it shares:Subotica →