German Lessons in Hungary

My next stop in Hungary was Lake Balaton the largest lake in central Europe.

It is a bit of a strange area that seems to be a very touristy destination. I was here at a time when there were not that many tourist. A larger part of the lake front seems to be privately owned and used for camping and fenced off so you can not walk along a lot of the lake shore. All of these lake front properties were deserted and gave me a bit of a surreal feeling. I did manage to find what I think was a park at the edge of the lake and ate my lunch watching the swans floating along.

Prior to my lunch I visited the Church on Tihany. Tihany is a small peninsula type of land mass that sticks out into the lake and has a large hill in the center. This little bit of land seems to be unlike a lot of the lake where the waterfront had a path next to it with benches every so often. The village and church are at the top of the hill and have a great view out over the lake.

The above picture is behind the church and the next 2 are on the outside and inside of the church.

Late in the afternoon I made it to the Festetics Palace at Keszthely. I walked through the coach museum prior to joining the tour of the palace. i took a lot of pictures of the coaches in the museum and then didn't take any pictures when going through the palace. I don't know if pictures were allowed in the palace but for some reason assumed they were not allowed.

I said something in my last post about the tour guide at Pannonhalma and him curbing my enthusiasm well the tour guide at the Festetics Palace was the complete opposite. The tour was fantastic and the enthusiasm and sense of humor of the tour guide was contagious. It was a small tour with only 3 of us in the group and I don't recall many of the details that were covered but still thoroughly enjoyed the tour and would really recommend it.

I spent the night in Keszthely and the picture above is what appeared to be the main square in the town. I ended up eating Italian food for dinner in a restaurant with the walls covered in US car license plates. I spoke English to the staff in the restaurant and they spoke German to me. We did not really have a conversation but at least for ordering food and getting more beer we spoke 2 different languages and seemed to understand each other. I did use my one word of Hungarian (Thank you) so much so they finally told me to shut the hell up or maybe I do not really understand German.

Lake Balaton gets a lot of German and Austrian tourist so most people started with speaking German to me and for some reason I found this really funny.