Have you Been to Hungary?
We all do it, it seems. We set foot across a border or breeze through a city and add a country to our bio: Been there. Check.
It may have been a day, or a highly scripted week, or 6 years living there, but they all count the same. I do it, trying to downplay the number of countries I’ve “been to” while subconsciously keeping track.
We’ve spent the last week in Budapest exploring, and it quickly became all too easy to see Budapest as Hungary, or Hungary as Budapest. I mean, last year we did a day and a half in Budapest and were happy to have included Hungary on our checklist. But had we been to Hungary? Yes. But not so much, it seems.
Yesterday we took the train to Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Central Europe. The town we targeted on the recommendation of our hosts is on the north side of the lake, about a 2-hour fast train ride south of Budapest.
Through a rather dusty window we watched as Budapest’s huge, barren Soviet-era blocks of concrete apartments gave way to single-family homes with flower gardens and small yards, then miles of flat, empty countryside clearly being prepared for spring planting. I wanted to ask a fellow passenger what they would plant there, but realized just in the nick of time that I wouldn’t understand the answer. Wheat? Corn? Sunflower seeds? Those are Hungary’s biggest cash crops.
As we approached the lake, a whole new Hungary came into view, a land of recreation and summer vacations and wealth. By the time we reached the small town of Balatonfüred, we were amazed. Lovely big homes dotted the hillside leading down to the lake. We walked to the closest marina at the bottom of the hill and it was full of yachts either parked on their trailers or secure in their slips.
An article from two years ago in Daily News Hungary reported that in spite of dozens of marinas around the lake, there are still over 100 yachts that have no place to tie up, so mooring was being considered as an option. Mooring meaning that you drop an anchor or tie up to a buoy. In stormy weather, there’s much more risk of damage to your boat or others, so it’s not a slam-dunk decision. My point is that there are a lot more yachts than I would have expected in what might be considered a relatively poor country.
A tree-lined boardwalk ran almost the whole length of the town with a wide lane for walkers beside another wide lane for bicycles and scooters. For the first couple hours after we arrived, we had the place mostly to ourselves, to wander and click pics. Later in the day more people appeared, but there were never crowds. Our host had suggested this town because it isn’t as touristy as the south side of the lake.
The water is the color of glacial lakes in the Sierras: an eye-catching aqua-marine. We didn’t see any beaches where we were, and there were only a couple boats out on the April water, but one imagines the summertime lake to be filled with cruise boats, colorful yachts, swimmers, standup paddlers, kayakers, and kids playing in the water-based playground. Already, brilliant flowers were everywhere. If every yacht were sailing at the same time, I imagined getting from shore to shore just jumping from deck to deck.
We walked for a while, pausing to look at sculptures of what people want to highlight of their history or art. One stood out: a simple hand sticking out of its concrete base. Although we couldn’t understand the inscription, I figured out the date and Googled it.
After the war, when there were few passenger boats on the lake, a Danube passenger boat that had been sunk by a mine was resurrected and transported to the lake. There the Pajtás was expanded to carry more passengers, but in spite of crew warnings, no one checked to see how the modifications would affect its stability. One day when the boat was filled to capacity, passengers all moved to one side to watch a sailboat race. The boat listed precipitously and the captain could not regain control. In spite of help from the sailboats, many people drowned.
“Many people” is an inexact number. The Russians who ran the country and controlled the press immediately moved to sink the story along with the boat, their neglect being rather conspicuous. They reported 12 casualties and it was not mentioned again for many years. Survivors put the number at 26. A witness said he saw over 40 dead.
It isn’t the only scar on the lake’s past. One of Germany’s last gasps was carried out as an offensive around the lake, during which they sank a number of passenger boats and fought battles in the skies. Fighter planes and unexploded ordinance still rest on the bottom of the lake. A rumor has it that there is a tank down there too, after it broke through the ice on the lake. The rumor has never been confirmed.
Other than the desperate sculpture, all of that is history, except that when I asked someone “Who owns all the yachts?” the immediate answer was “The Family,” referring to Prime Minister Orban and his allies. There is clearly a feeling amongst some people that Hungary’s best is being greedily grabbed by its worst. I couldn’t confirm that either, but I can confirm the emotional response.
We rented electric scooters for an hour. Nora wasn’t sure about the whole idea at first, but by the end of the hour, after we had run the full length of the boardwalk and explored a vineyard just up from the town, she yelled over my shoulder, “We need a couple of these.” With little traffic and less pedestrians, it was the perfect place and weather to fall in love with scooters. (Budapest, not so much.)
So had we been to Hungary before we visited Lake Balaton? Yes. No. Every country is a collage that one picture can’t show, and to think one city sums up the whole of the country is unfairly incomplete. Maybe when asked if I’ve ever been to Hungary I should answer, “Well… I spent three weeks in Budapest and a day at Lake Balaton, but there’s a lot more to see.”
Uh huh. I’ll probably just say “yes.”
