Lake Balaton

Norm: Before telling you about the Balaton, you might get a kick out of this story:
In my never ending quest to find Root Beer in Hungary, I got on line and punched into my browser..."Root Beer Hungary". Well that got me into a site for the Balaton Cafe. OK lets check out their menu. Sure enough, right there in black and white on the menu was Root Beer. Now I know from Pécs, the Balaton is only a 2 1/2 hour drive. Now for a Root Beer starved individual such as I, a drive of that distance for a good mug would be well within the realm of possibility. But were on the Balaton? Au yes they have a map. Punch up the map as to how to find the Balaton Cafe. Sure enough, there it is.......Balaton Cafe, Authentic Hungarian Cuisine,....CLEVELAND OHIO!!

Lake Balaton is Central Europe's largest freshwater lake about 60 km long. It is a fairly shallow lake and warms quite nicely in the summer. It is a very popular tourist draw with its close proximity to Budapest, although visitors from Germany add greatly to the tourist count. Because of our limited Magyarul, we were immediately pegged as being Germans almost every time.

Hungarians love their Paprika as evidenced by the hung to dry peppers on this Paprikaház.

We only had a one night stay over, so we were determined to spend it on the lake. We found an RV Park that had lake side bungalows.

A short walk to town to buy groceries and we were all set for breakfast on the porch next morning. This was mid September and we practically had the place to ourselves.

Heather: We really enjoyed our stay at this large campground. It was beautifully landscaped with flower pots everywhere (I did not download these pictures or there would have been flower pots!) Another good thing about being at Lake Balaton in September is that the mosquitoes are gone. We sat by the lake and watched the sun set, fish jumping, and a three lovely swans glide by. It was a totally refreshing and relaxing time together. We could see why the Balaton is such a popular destination for Hungarians and Germans from near by Austria! I hope we will be able to go back in the Spring when the lilacs are blooming!