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Thursday, June 25, 2009

On the shores of the Hungarian Sea...

...as Lake Balaton is affectionately called around here. When you have no proper sea, anything goes, really. I feel their landlocked pain all right, coming from one of the few other European countries without a seaside (even Bosnia has its three and a half meters of coast, damn it!) but do check which two countries dominate water polo (I repeat, water polo) for years now.

Enough digressions, let's get down to the lake and see what we find there.

A sunset on the shore, and a tumultuous sky set against a big, calm water. Make no mistake, Balaton is huge--it is almost 80km long.

It's a great place for fishing

lounging

or having a walk in a pretty little town. Ours was Tihany, town on a hill from which you get the best views of the lake.

You can take the path that follows the shore, along the walls of a fortification from times long gone

and admire these thatched roofs resembling elaborate winter hats.

You will inevitably run into pottery--on wooden fences, window sills or on the ground, dozens of brightly colored cups, pots and plates dot the landscape. I loved the colors and couldn't resist taking (way too) many pictures so, beware, gratuitous pottery shots follow




with some flowers thrown in for good measure, shot a la Polly, who likes to look at the world in a skewed way (literally, not metaphorically, although I can't vouchsafe for that, having missed a chance to get to know her live at Blog Camp 1.0)
Of course, you knew that all this walking must lead to something or somewhere, and that's straight to a bowl of hearty goulash, on the terrace of a csarda overlooking the lake,

where you find an unexpected treat--a sea of wild lavender.

6 comments:

Polly said...

Oh I've been to Balaton!!! Even though we do have a nice long coastline in Poland.

It's a lovely lake, I can't remember the pottery but it looks very nice on your photos.

And I'd love some of this goulash :-)

Thanks for linking to me!

Seaside Girl said...

The goulash looks divine. Great photos especially your shot a la Polly!

Delwyn said...

Hi Jelica

thanks for a lovely post and the interesting info too. I like the thatch - so soft looking

Happy Days

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

Another great post. I like traveling via your blog.

Jelica said...

Polly and Seaside Girl--I actually need to learn to cook goulash. It's not so difficult, in theory.

Delwyn--I also fell in love with those thatched roofs. They are so stylish!

Squirrel--thank you! More travel stories to come shortly :)

Lorac said...

Hi Jelica! Thanks for checking out my site. Lake of bays is a lovely lake but the one in the title block is the lake my family has a cottage on,Kawagama Lake. The name means bottomless or hollow lake. In the large part of the lake it is over 300 feet deep, which is quite deep for a fresh water lake.I have always loved your posts. I have been to Belgium and really enjoyed going back. Your pictures and write up in this post are great!