23.06.2007 Lake Balaton

150km is the distance between Budapest and Fonyod, but because it is saturday and all inhabitants of Budapest seems to have a holiday apartment at Lake Balaton, we do not go on very fast. We need almost five hours for this short distance. When we reach Fonyod, we find our destination address with the help of our navigation system very quickly. But we have to notice then, that the owner of the holiday house rented it to other guests. So we contact the agency we booked the cottage through. Thirty minutes later an employee of the agency meets us and leads us to a larger and better cottage for the same price. Our new cottage has a large garden, our dog loves it.

From the cottage we have to go about 1 km to the shores of Lake Balaton. Mostly we use the bikes.

In the surroundings of the cottage you find the opportunity for jogging with the dog in the morning.

We live on the southern bank of Lake Balaton, the lake here is extremely shallow. You have to go more than 100 meters, before you can start to swim. Apart from that the beach is very nice - if you don't mind grass snakes. You see numerous grass snakes here and the snakes find rich spoils (small fishes), they avoid people. When I go for jogging in the morning, I see many dead snakes on the streets, the cars are faster.

Fonyod itself has not much to offer to tourists. Nice is the area around the port of Fonyod and the view from the highest pint of this area. Remarkable however is a bike shop. For a few cent the owner repairs your bike (for example adjusting brakes and gearbox).

Starting at our cottage we take some bicycle tours, of we have a bicycle trailer with us for Teddy.

Some ways a too long for biking. So we drive by car to the Peninsula Tihany. Tihany is located at the northern bank of the lake and because we don't want to drive  araund the lake by car, we take the ferry.

Another day we go to Keszthely. That day it rains continuously and the sun will not come out. In Keszthely there are much more tourists than in Fonyod, especially Germans and the restaurants here are much more expensive.

On 07.07.2007 we leave the Balaton. Early in the morning the employee of the agency takes a look at the cottage and then we go on to Vienna.  On the way we see some large sunflower fields.