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BADACSONY VILLAGE |
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Although trains and buses also call at the other villages -
Badacsonytomaj, Badacsonylábdihegy and Badacsonytördemic - it is
BADACSONY proper that gets all the tourists, who arrive by ferry from
Balatonboglár, Fonyód and Szigliget, and in high summer it's absolutely
packed. Whatever your means of transport, you'll arrive in the midst of
a mass of stalls selling folksy crafts, wine and fried fish. Just over
the level crossing on Egry sétány, the Egry Museum , (May-Sept Tues-Sun
10am-6pm; 200Ft), currently closed for renovation, exhibits the
paintings of József Egry, a local artist who died in 1951. Born into a
poor family, Egry worked as a locksmith and roofer before winning a
scholarship to the Academy of Fine Arts. His paintings capture the
changing light and moods of Balaton.
From May till October you can take one of the jeep-taxis leaving from in
front of the Tourinform office on Park utca, and for 800Ft you'll be
transported, at alarmingly high-speeds, 3km uphill through the vineyards
to the charming Róza Szegedy House ( Szegedy Róza Ház ; Tues-Sun: May-Sept
10am-6pm; Oct 10am-5pm; 200Ft). Róza Szegedy met her future husband,
poet Sándor Kisfaludy, on the slopes of the Badacsony in 1795, and when
they married five years later they used her Badacsony house as a summer
home; its views proved to be an inspiration to his poetry. As well as a
selection of his literature, the museum contains modern furniture,
including an ornate card table, though the bed in Róza's room upstairs
was her own. A wine bar now operates in the former wine-press room.
From the museum you can follow a path up to the Rose Rock ( Rózsako ),
where it's said that if a man and woman sit upon it with their backs to
Balaton and think about each other, they'll be married by the end of the
year. The trail continues through the beechwoods to the Kisfaludy
lookout tower (437m), about an hour's walk from the museum, and on
another twenty minutes to the Stone Gate ( Kokapu ), two massive basalt
towers flanking a precipitous drop.
For longer hikes into the hills further north, offering an escape from
the crowds, it's a good idea to buy a 1:80,000-scale map of the region
from one of the tourist offices. A four-kilometre walk northwest from
the Stone Gate will bring you to Gulács-hegy , a perfectly conical hill
(393m) near the Nemesgulács halt for trains en route to Tapolca. The
Szent György-hegy (415m), on the far side of the tracks, boasts some
impressive basalt organ pipes and the region's finest vineyards, where
Szürkebarát is produced. A few kilometres to the east, the
375-metre-high Csobánc-hegy is crowned by a ruined castle ; this hike
will probably take the best part of a day and leave you closer to
Tapolca than Balaton. Don't be alarmed if you hear bangs in the fields
around you: it's just the local way of scaring birds off the grape crop.
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