More than Balaton
Hungary's lakeside get-away reveals more than splashy fun

By Carolyn Chapman
Reporting from Lake Balaton, Hungary

Hungary's famed Lake Balaton has been undergoing significant transformations of late. While a decade ago, crowds of revelers and tourists thronged to what was termed the "Hungarian Sea," today there is very different Balaton developing. From wine cellars to spas to attractions for those looking for a traditional country lifestyle, a new look for Balaton is on the horizon as specialized tourism is replacing simple sunbathing tourism.

If anyone at Lake Balaton knows about the region's tourism business, it's Loránd Mányai, who owns two restaurants, a wine cellar and one of the biggest hotels in Badacsony. In 1982, when he opened the Halászkert Étterem, a few dozen meters from the lake's shore, Balaton tourism was a different business. Back then, East and West Germans divided by the Iron Curtain were Balaton's best customers. They used the lake as a meeting point, since under Communism it was one of the few places for divided friends and families to meet.

But the large numbers of German tourists who once filled the terraces of restaurants and strands along the lake have been dwindling over the past few years, said Mányai. "When the borders opened, the whole rest of the world became our competition," he said. To people used to the hoards of tourists that once filled Balaton during summer months, the lake is visibly emptier these days: streets are quieter and there seems to be more green space on strands. It wasn't until 2001 that Balaton really started losing tourists to competing vacation spots, due to several reasons, says Mányai. The water level fell because of a few dry years, and the Hungarian press began writing negative articles implying Balaton had high prices, not enough water and deteriorating roads. German and Austrian media followed suit, and that's when the big crowds disappeared, he says lugubriously.

Increasing internal tourism
Competition soon became the name of the game. A few changes for the better have surfaced out of Balaton's difficulties in recent years, Mányai says optimistically. "The missing German tourists are being replaced by an increasing number of Hungarian tourists, and we have started concentrating on inland tourism."

Higher-tier international tourists in the spa and specialty tourism sectors have also increased the profile of visitors targeted these days. The changing face of Balaton brings with it a new image for the lake. Balaton is no longer viewed as just a place for sailing and swimming, cheap beer and wine, fried fish and langos - although those things are all still available. But the towns, villages, national parks and countryside surrounding Balaton that are so rich in history, culture and nature, have shifted the focus. The spotlight is focusing on what the region has to offer aside from the lake - attracting tourists who want to do more than sunbathe on vacations.

More than just a lake
Just steps from Balaton's 315 km of shoreline are dozens of museums, castles, palaces, a Benedictine abbey (Tihany), national parks, caves, wine cellars, first class restaurants and scenic rolling hills in one of the country's best wine regions. In fact, it is entirely possible to spend a vacation at Balaton and never set foot in the lake - and not run out of things to do.

Spas, which are sprouting up throughout Hungary, are one option. Wellness tourism is on the rise throughout Hungary, and the Balaton region is no exception. Lake Héviz, which lies seven kilometers northwest of Balaton in the crater of an extinct volcano, is Europe's largest thermal lake. With nearly a dozen spa hotels in the small town, it is the best known site for spa tourism in the region. The warm sulfurous waters in the creamy greenish lake, layered with pink water lilies, makes it a year-round tourist attraction, and a model that other towns are hoping to follow.

Siófok, the biggest town on Balaton's flat, southern shore, has long been known for its nightlife and bustling summer discos. In fact, many foreign guidebooks recommend just using the town as a transit point.

Siófok used to have the reputation as a good-time party spot. But, like the rest of the tourism industry at Balaton, that image is changing. Earlier this month, the four-star Hotel Azur - with 222 rooms, spa facilities and the biggest conference facilities at Lake Balaton - opened in Siófok, seeking to capitalize on Balaton's new image by taking advantage of thermal water that is said to spring from the ground at nearly every point in Hungary, and aiming toward a year-round conference and spa destination.

"The lake is just not enough to be the only thing to attract tourists," said Sonja Seer, the hotel's sales manager. "People like being treated well, and wellness is popular throughout the world. We have the opportunity to do that here with our thermal water."

Traditionally Hungarian
For the untrained eye, Zamárdi, about eight kilometers west of Siófok, isn't much of a town. But just a short walk into the country from the lake is some of the most beautiful, unspoiled farmland in the area - rolling meadows of wildflowers, streams and small lakes, shepherds and their sheep, and groups of cattle and goats.

"It's ideal land for exploring by horse," says Endre Frank, which is why he opened his equestrian complex there. "This is the real Hungary, not what you see from the highway," he said.

More than just a place to learn how to ride horses, Frank's Kocsi Csárda and horse village also have a traditional Hungarian restaurant, 12, 19th-century-style cottages, each with a thatched roof and stable, a horse riding school and horse carriages to chauffer spectators into clearing in the woods where they are greeted with an equestrian performance, can listen to live gypsy music and eat gulyás cooked in a traditional bogrács over an open fire.

"The main idea behind this place is to show Hungarian culture and tradition to our guests," said Frank, who was a novice in the horse business when he opened the place in 1990. "You can come here to learn how to ride, or you can go off on your own with your own horse."

The place is popular with parents who want their children to learn Hungarian equestrian traditions: when they arrive they are given their own horse, which they learn how to ride, clean and care for throughout the stay.

A step back in time
If the reconstructed Hungarian village at the Kocsi Csárda strives to look like an authentic old Hungarian village, then the Village of Salföld in the Balaton Uplands National Park on the northern shore of the lake is the real thing. Riding through the village in a horse carriage feels like a step back in time. Just 60 people, including eight children, live in Salföld, said Gábor Barcza, who lives in nearby Badacsony, as he pointed out various types of traditional folk architecture in the village.

Just outside Salföld, overlooking the lake, is a "stone sea" of dozens of flat rocks scattered along the hillside. The rocks were formed when Lake Balaton was part of the Pannonion Sea, through a combination of salt water, volcanic material, hot springs and sand.

Barcza works next to Salföld, at the national park's Nature Preservation Manor, which keeps traditional Hungarian breeds of farm animals, like the black racka sheep with twisted horns, buffalo, mangalica pigs and long-haired Hungarian sheep dogs. The park also owns 400 of the famed Hungarian Gray cattle, once in danger of extinction. There are now more than 10,000 gray cows in Hungary, but back in 1975, only two herds remained, with a total 300 cows. Only a few of the gray cows are present at the manor at any given time, however, because "we rent them out to farms to eat the grass," said Barcza.

The northern hills sloping up from Balaton - particularly around Badacsony and Balatonfüred - look like a patchwork of grapevines set among fields of lavender and chunks of limestone. The region has a long history of winemaking, and produces some of the best whites in the country. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the best Hungarian wines are still kept for the domestic market, but many of the region's best winemakers are eager to open their cellars to tourists for tours and tasting. With his bushy white hair in disarray, Mihály Figula, owner of the Fine Wine Winery in Balatonfüred, looks more like a stereotypical scientist than one of Hungary's top wine makers. As he poured wine at a recent tasting - a total of 11 varieties accompanied by cheese and freshly baked pogacsa - he described each of them in detail, stopping every so often to savor a mouthful of his own delicious creations.

The wine-making cycle
Earlier, inside his state-of-the-art wine cellar, set among rows of neatly planted vineyards on a hill overlooking Balaton, he showed off his oak barrels full of aging wine, explaining his whole process of winemaking. From seeing where the grapes are grown, crushed and put into barrels, to tasting the finished product, Figula (Hungary's wine maker of the year in 2000) led the group visiting his cellar throughout the entire life cycle of his award winning wines. He is one of the many Hungarian winemakers who has brought the passion for wine drinking back to Hungary, by concentrating on quality rather than quantity, and has helped popularize wine tourism.

Balaton's very popularity and big summer crowds, ironically, used to be its main drawback. In the eyes of Balaton's entrepreneurs, thinning crowds at Balaton are a problem. But for Balaton's visitors, less people may not necessarily be a bad thing, and could make for a more pleasant vacation.

"Every region goes through hard times, and this is Balaton's difficult time," said Mányai. "But the lake and the surrounding areas will always be beautiful, and that's why I think things will change in a good way."

He is anticipating the return of summers when all of his restaurant tables and hotel beds were full. An airport will open next year in Sármellék, at the western end of Balaton, which will make the lake a short flight from Budapest, and a destination on the budget airline circuit, he said. Perhaps that will also once again bring a new image for Balaton. Despite all of the sights that lay off of the lake's shores, the water itself will always be the main attraction for many.

* Photography courtesy Vanda Katona, Magyar Turizmus Rt.
* Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved

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