We were standing next to the smaller bath, its circular rim beautifully shaped by large white blocks of stone worn smooth over centuries of use. Complete with a ledge on which to sit, it resembled a sort of ancient hot tub.
"The Romans built them, before Jesus," shouted one man, shampoo bottle in hand. Another piped up: "But they were damaged in an earthquake and that's when the Ottomans came and repaired it."
Indeed there had been an earthquake in the 14th Century. Even if their dates were a little out, you couldn't fault their enthusiasm and glowing pride.
In fact, as I stepped over the stretched legs and passed reclined bodies dangling their legs in the sea-green water, I got the impression nothing had really changed since the baths were constructed in the first century AD. Only the more recent Ottoman brickwork, the newly constructed changing room doors and the numerous brightly coloured plastic buckets gave the game away.
The important social function of a bathhouse has also been retained - family issues are discussed and resolved and jokes and stories are told to echoing laughter and the sound of a slapped thigh, back or hand.
Sport is heatedly debated, politics perhaps less so in this country - suspicion of who is hearing what remains a hangover from the civil war when careless talk cost lives. Few have the stomach or wish to risk more conflict - one of many plausible explanations as to why the Arab Spring went largely unnoticed in Algeria.
A Roman bathhouse still in use after 2,000 years (BBC News)
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