August 01, 2004

After many fun days in Budapest, we decided it was time to move on. After a train and a boat, we've found ourselves on the northern shore of Lake Balaton, in a tiny town called Tihany. We're taking a few days to relax and enjoy nature after a fantastic 5 days in the big city.

We spent a total of 5 nights in Budapest, taking in the sights. Unfortunately it was raining for about 4 of those days so I think most of our memories of the city itself will be a lot of dreary weather and running from awning to awning. The rain wasn't unusual according to people we talked to, but the previous week it had been uncomfortably hot! Oh well.

We were able to see some fascinating sites in the city, and both of us enjoyed it quite a lot. We've learned alot about the different attitudes towards communisim, and one of the highlights of the visit was Statue Park. After the fall of communism in 1989-90, all of the major communist statues and plaques were moved to a lonely plateau about 5km out of town. (the rest were destroyed) The messages in the monuments were very powerful - they made it easier to understand the stranglehold that communism must have had on the country. The park itself was constructed beautifully, showing the ways the Soviet regime tried to express their "friendship" with the Hungarian people, while at the same time maintaining a tight hold on almost every aspect of their lives.

When we had more or less exhausted Budapest, we decided to head to Zagreb, Croatia and stop along the way to experience more of Hungary. We looked on the train routes, and the lake was a convenient place to stop for a few days.

Lake Balaton is a giant lake in the western part of Hungary. Its a bit like Lake Tahoe in size, and there is a lively summer season. Whats particularly interesting about this lake is that it is positively cloudy with minerals.

This brings us to one of many unique aspects of Hungary: for a landlocked country, the Magyars sure do love water. From the baths in Budapest to the summer holidays on the lakes, you'd think Hungarians were amphibious.

But the reason for this seems to be that much of Hungary (the land) is over a geothermal lake, and millions of gallons of warm (30-40 degrees centigrade, or about 86-104 degrees farenheit!) water pours out of different sources all over the country. In fact in Budapest, the division between the original cities of Buda and Pest was not so much the obvious Danube River, but the place where this thermal water originates in that city.

And so unlike Tahoe, the lake is apparently quite warm because of these thermal waters. We've just arrived by ferry from the main town of Siofok (she-o-foke) in Tihany, so we haven't swum ourselves yet. We're going to hike around in the hills and build up a sweat before we try out the lake.

One thing that none of the guidebooks told us is that much of this lake, and especially Tihany, is a very popular place for German families to come and visit. The "locals" (probably a lot of summer staff) speak Hungarian and German, but rarely english. We're used to encountering some difficulty finding someone who can speak english or be patient enough with our few words of Hungarian, but here if we don't understand hungarian, they they try talking to us in German. When that doesn't work... well lets just say there is a lot of gesturing and pointing on our part. If anything, its all a bit refreshing that the place isn't swarming with Americans and English speakers (in fact, in the last day we haven't met any, which is pretty surprising) But there is so much german, that we've taken to calling it Little Germany.

We've also moved up in accommatations. We found a cute little B&B down the road from the main town. This should be good news to everyone (including ourselves) who had a laugh about us staying in bunkbeds on our honeymoon.

And now we're off to explore more of Tihany!