Hello from Császártöltés in Hungary.
By our standards, we crawled out of bed relatively late today after a long day yesterday. We were able to wake up in peace at Josef’s (apart from a bit of construction noise at 6am). Our Vitara was allowed to spend the night in the courtyard, which he loved. 😀 Around 10 a.m. we set off overland, toll-free, towards Lake Balaton. At our accommodation, we put our swimsuits under our clothes so that we could go straight into the cool water – because that was our goal: splashing around in Lake Balaton. It’s going to be great! 🥳 We just had to check which spots were convenient for our route and preferably without too many tourists and then off we went. Whereby “hopp” is to be taken quite literally 👀😲 Hungary has incredibly bad roads on the secondary routes. In one tour, there was squeaking (the water bottles), rattling (probably the zipper of suitcase 1), rumbling (definitely suitcase 2 in cooperation with the reserve oil), and squeaking (the Garmin inReach for track recording wanted to say “hello”). We were shaken (not stirred) and celebrated every bump-free section of road. 😀 You get used to a lot of things, but this was borderline.
Marco had said last year at the Carbage Run that Hungary is almost completely flat – I couldn’t really imagine that, as the neighboring countries have such blatant mountains. But if you look at the maps, you can see that the rocks wind nicely around Hungary and it’s really flat here. You can see endless fields of corn and sunflowers. The grain fields have already been mown. But we also drove through a large area with vineyards.
But as we drive through the villages, a policeman suddenly runs into the road in front of us. What does he want now, does he mean us? He probably is – so put on the blinker and listen to what he wants. “Oh dear!”, I (Marco) thought to myself – “I forgot to switch on the lights!” – which is mandatory in Hungary even during the day. The young police officer spoke to us in Hungarian – apparently the German license plate wasn’t enough of an indication of our origin. At least he could speak English and asked for our driver’s license, which I of course handed over. He then disappeared behind the car and diligently typed data into his smartphone. By now we were joking around in the front: “I wonder if he’ll take a selfie with us?” – “Nah, you can’t do that!” – “Maybe you should ask?” – “I don’t know….”
When he came back, he gave me my driver’s license back and wished me a safe journey. I plucked up all my courage and asked: “Would you mind if we take a selfie with you?” 😇 Nobody knows what he was thinking at that moment. He thought about it for a moment and said: “Mhhhhhhhhhhhm, okay!”. And that’s how we got our selfie with a Hungarian policeman – which of course we won’t publish for privacy reasons! We laughed together, talked briefly about our trip and our adventure continued!
Unfortunately, we canceled our goal for the day – swimming in Lake Balaton – when we arrived in Tihany. It felt like half of Hungary was out and about here, longing for the cool water. As a day tourist, you can hardly get to the water without paying an entrance fee for a lido or marina. Wherever you can, it’s crowded with people, of course it’s the height of summer and the vacation season – so Lake Balaton is a popular destination. Understandable – but not ours at all. Okay, we had a quick think and came up with a new plan. If we can’t go swimming, then at least we can put our feet in the water, right? That will work! We made two attempts, but then gave up this plan too and looked for an alternative for at least a nice view of the lake with its great water color. And we found it. Off-road, of course 😀 Adventure!
The viewpoint “Soós-hegyi kilátó” in Balatonkenese, on a “breakwater” (the Google translator produces strange expressions) – a high mountain/rock – was a great reward. Sun, wind, bright blue skies, 28°C and a view that could hardly be better. We took our time here to take pictures with all our cameras. See for yourself, it was worth it. What’s more, we were almost alone up there.
Finally, we treated ourselves to a delicious iced coffee (for me, Regine, even with oat milk) and looked for our next accommodation.
Conclusion: Hungarian police officers are cool socks. Most of the roads are a real disaster. Another realization is that you can hardly get a foot in the water at Lake Balaton in the high season. There are no long sandy beaches as we are used to. Most of them are stony or even asphalted stretches that are quite short. As a result, they are of course completely overcrowded. Other access points (which are probably more beautiful) cost an entrance fee. But the great view of Lake Balaton is at least as beautiful as swimming in it.
