The Good Life in Aggtelek National Park Part XXVII: Holiday in Balaton-Felvidék National Park

The Balaton-Felvidék National Park (BNP) advertised their annual Lavender Festival and we thought that it would be a perfect time to take our first family holiday together since we also had Kata's granddaughter Lili with us. There was even a pick-your-own lavender place we were very much looking forward to so that we could brew up some lavender syrup and lavender oil. However, a couple days before setting off I called a colleague at BNP and was disappointed to learn that the lavender had all gone to seed or been picked a week early. But our plans were made, and we would enjoy the company of friends in any case. Equipped with a borrowed child car seat from Mariann and child bike seat from Agi (thank you both!), we set off on the long trip to Örvényes just past Tihany where our friends Csaba and Jackie had agreed to put up a big tent for us in their yard.

 We made a lunch stop in Gárdony by Lake Velence and had delicious gyros at Gárdonyi Gyros. The portions were huge and the service friendly. We had some trouble finding the cottage, driving past it about 3 times before Jackie finally took pity on us and came out to the turn off.

We had an adventurous 3+ hours trying to put up the huge family-size tent. Jackie and Csaba had used it a couple times before, but even so, the logic escaped all of us. Jackie and I had given up at this point and headed for the wine bottle. However, Csaba and Kata suddenly had a brainwave, which neither understands, and managed to solve the puzzle. The tent actually had two separate rooms, one for Kata and I, and one for Lili and her ponies. Jackie made some lovely Kaposztas Kocka for dinner. A big storm rocked the tent all evening, but we stayed dry and comfy.

The next morning we went to Tihany to see if there was any chance of still picking some lavender, but we were out of luck. Instead, we had some fantastic ice cream at the Levendula Fagyizo. This is now a chain that has several locations in Budapest as well. I had a delightful wheat beer ice cream as well as a scoop of dark chocolate-lavender. The ice cream is not cheap, but it is fine and the people are friendly. If you are going to eat ice cream, this is the place. Kata's Tihany Camembert cheese ice cream was also tasty.

In the afternoon we visited the Örvényes Beach. Not only is it small and free, it has a great playground and sandbox for children, as well as boules. While service was friendly at the fast food area, my langos was disappointing. Kata and Lili's hotdogs with caramelised onions were much better. Csaba took us to the neighbour Balint's to buy some wine for dinner. While his red cuvee was not very drinkable, his Italian Riesling was good, and his fresh Juhfark excellent. We bought a bottle of each, but should have bought a few more of the Juhfark.  Jackie made a bogracs for dinner as we enjoyed the wine at sunset.

The next day, after another afternoon at the beach, we left quite late to go to Balatonakarattya to meet Chris and Nora and Nora's son Abel as they themselves would not be arriving until late evening. Csaba and Jackie went on their way to the Gastro Blues Festival in Paks, where Zsolt, Aggtelek National Park's marketing manager was also making his annual pilgrimage. Looking desperately for a place to eat, I remembered a vineyard where Jon G. and I had had an excellent glass of bone-dry Pecselyi Muscat 2011 a couple years ago. It was also a restaurant with an exciting choice of vegetarian food. Söptei in Csopak proved very difficult to find, but I thought the wine and view would be worth it. I have no idea how Jon and I found it before. However, our hopes were dashed looking at the menu, with entrées costing 3400 HUF on average. Dinner was finally at a quiet roadside pizzeria garden called the Fekete Rigo. My 4-cheese pizza was a bit sweet, but very good and loaded with cheese. Kata had an equally good broccoli pizza. Service was very friendly.

Having gotten used to getting up at 5am every day to water and weed the garden, it was a relief and a surprise to wake up and find it was already 9am. The house was designed by environmental architect Imre Markovecz when he was a nobody. The view is spectacular from the terrace, where we enjoyed a breakfast of Hungarian (savory) French toast. Nora's niece and Lili were occupied with their new friendship and their toy ponies, but wanted to go swimming. I made the difficult decision to stay on the terrace with a beer and read my book. In the evening, Chris the grill master cooked up some delicious chicken, sausages, eggplant, pork and zucchini. We destroyed the bottle of Juhfark in short order, then moving on to the Italian Riesling and palinka.

The following day we just hung out and relaxed at the house. For lunch, Nora and Kata went for langos and gofri and brought it home from Balatonfűzfő. The langos was good, but the gofri was even better.

Petrol prices were ridiculously high. In Szendrő we paid 423 Huf/litre, but on the highway this climbed to 459 HUF/litre. Nora's mother tipped us off to the incredibly cheap gas at Auchan for 413. We arrived home past midnight exhausted. Our neighbours Csaba and Sonja were kind enough to water our garden while we were away. It was only five days, but the corn was as tall as me. We were able to pick the humungous broad beans, the first zucchini, and some French beans. Cucumbers and runner beans were also showing up. We also dug up our first gorgeous new potatoes. Tomatoes had also begun appearing on the vines.

By evening a major storm had struck. We lost some big branches off a cherry tree, but even worse, our corn was flattened and the tomatoes were flopping all over the place. Almost in tears, we rushed out at 5am in the deluge to try to prop up the corn with soil.  As soon as we had gotten both rows standing again, the massive rain washed the support away and we were back to square one. We were also unlucky with our once beautiful winter wheat. Birds and rodents got most of the grain. I harvested everything and put it out to dry, but the rain also soaked what was left. It has now gone to the compost. Only time will tell now what will survive, but most of the corn is standing again.