And of course, the Balaton

Lake Balaton is 85 km long, so longer than our Flemish coastline (and the circumference is much more, of course). Although on a beautiful Sunday almost all Hungarians head for Balaton-worthy it is not that crowded compared to our coast. On the other hand, what is called ‘beach’ here is mostly grass. In many places, there are just reeds along the lake and you really can’t reach them, so you have to go to those paid or free ‘grass beaches’. But they are very nice with sanitary facilities and all kinds of places to eat and drink, and usually also play equipment, floating bouncy castles etc. for the children. A bit ‘the Nekker’ writ large.

Of course, we can go swimming during the week after work (4 pm) and enjoy the perfect water temperature (as early as May) and gently sloping sandy bottom (without rocks and sea urchins): swimming doesn’t get any better as far as I’m concerned. But we did go once on the first Sunday of the school holidays and at 35° to see how ‘bad’ the crowds got. The grass was indeed quite full, but you swim away from the little beach and along the reed beds in no time. Hungarians are really quiet people, all ages mix and it looks super peaceful. And what we noticed: towards the evening, everyone went home and left the beach clean…why can’t we do that with us?

Mazy is not 100% happy because most beaches are forbidden for dogs (which makes sense), although fortunately there are also beaches for dogs-with-bosses. She just needs to learn to swim better.