Lake Balaton, Hungary

Since you can never get enough of visiting lakes, we decided to visit the largest lake in Central europe - Balaton in Hungary.  We had originally planned to visit later in the year, but our research said the resorts close for the winter in September so we decided to go the last week in August.  There are a huge number of towns and villages on Lake Balaton, and a bewildering arrar of places to stay.  We eventually picked on Keszthely as a town to visit as it said it was quieter but had plenty to see and do. 
The drive from Bled was good - all motorways and no queues!  As we got close to the border I was getting a bit bored of the motorway and wanting to see a bit more of Hungary suggested we take a cross-country route on the smaller roads and through the villages.  The first impressions of Hungary were it was very flat, the roads are very empty, any cars seemed old and probably wouldn't pass an MOT.  The fields looked extremely dry, and crops were looking dead in the fields.  Bad summer?  Even in Keszthely, it was surprisingly quiet for late summer and little traffic - although the cars that are around drive a bit fast.  This was demonstrated by us witnessing a car crash at the junction next to where we had lunch on the second day.  Interesting! 

One thing of interest, if you ever intend on driving in Hungary - you must buy a vignette before entering the country.  Hungary have an e-vignette system that means you can buy them on-line, although I couldn't work out the website.  For dense foreigners like me you can buy them at garages.  They are not just for the motorways as in other european countries, a large number of their "A" roads need an obligatory vignette, so you can't get round it by using the smaller roads as you might in France, for example.  The shortest time you can buy for is 10 days, at around 2900 hungarian forints or approx 11 euros.  You must tell them your number plate and country of origin, and if stopped you must show your receipt, so keep it handy.

Another area of research was, of course, the alcoholic beverages.  Thanks to a little kindle book - Beer in the Balkans, we had a bit of information beforehand.  But this didn't prevent us trying all the different Hungarian beers.  The first one was Dreher - a bit bland but okay, nothing to get excited about.  Then, Richard tried an Arany Aszok which wasn't good, I'd accidentally ordered a german beer, Hofbrau and it was much nicer.
Later in the evening we stopped to try a Borsodi, which the book said was better.  Again, not very interesting, and we got seriously ripped off - 800 Hf for a half litre, all the others had been around 450-500 Hf.  I made a couple of scathing comments when we got the bill. 
Last, but my no means least, we found a bar near the Festestics palace that served Soprani, and this was definitely the best of a bad bunch.  Not on a par with Belgium or even German beers but drinkable and fairly pleasant. 
Overall, I wouldn't recommend Hungary as a great place for beer, they sell a lot of German and Czech beer and you can see why.  We did try a very nice bottle of the local white wine though.  Probably more of a wine-drinking country in conclusion.

A couple of words about Lake Balaton perhaps? It is big, and wet. No hills around so not very exciting to look at or photograph.  When we went in for a swim:
i) we had to pay 860 Hf each for the privilege of using the beach (nearly £3), and extra for sunbeds,
ii) the bottom is sand/mud so not as painful on the feet as Lake Bled, but is very squelchy and a bit horrid, and the lake looks very dirty,
iii) the water is so shallow you can walk 200 metres and still only be up to your waist, not good for swimming!

We did the tourist-type things - visited the Festetics Palace.  Interesting library.  Swam in the lake and went on a boat trip.


Keszthely boat pier

Enjoyed the food - tried the goulash soup, very nice and the venison stew (goulash, back home!), very tasty.  But a lot of the food was a bit stodgy and had a bit of a Germanic theme.  In fact, Keszthely seems very popular with the German tourists, and it is the second language spoken there.  A bit of a change for us, and painful to have to dig around for our few german phrases.  Richard kept reverting to Slovenian accidentally.

Interesting place to visit but as far as lakes go, Bled is prettier, cleaner and they speak English!