Panacea - a cure for all ills....

Thursday 11^th April 2013

Hungary is famous for its thermal baths – they are everywhere and are popular with the locals and tourists alike. We’ve been keen to soak up this experience but even though the prices are reasonable by western standards they have always been above the ‘daily attraction budget’ we set ourselves after wasting our money on the disappointing Nimes roman arena.

The baths have ranged from the exclusive at Lake Heviz with its colourful lily pads and maze of treatment corridors, the quirky at Miskolctapolca in an underground lake and the uninspiring one monopolised by an ugly hotel complex at Egerszolok. Many others are just like communal swimming pools.

If you believe the glossy brochures and leaflets handed out at these places there is almost no illness that cannot be cured by either bathing in or drinking the thermal water.... here goes....neurological diseases, dermatological diseases, disk degeneration, stimulating hormone production, refreshing the nervous system, rheumatoid arthritis, gynaecological diseases, intestinal diseases, reducing blood sugar levels, stimulating the regeneration of cells and metabolism .... the list is endless…..

We have finally found somewhere to put the claims to the test. The Thermal Camping site in Tiszafϋred where we are staying has its own thermal pool and what’s more it’s included in the camping price - result! The pool water is a dirty brown colour (Dave reassures me that’s the iron in the water), smells quite sulphorous and is steaming hot at between 34 and 38 degrees.

Perhaps it’s the time of year (i.e. out of peak-season) but I’m guessing the average age of the clients here at the moment is about 70 and none of them are looking too perky - even after a few hours soaking!

Dave dipped his head under the water and massaged his scalp in the hope that restoring hair growth might be another, as yet undiscovered, cure. As neither of us are suffering with any of the above mentioned diseases we are hoping a few soaks will have future-proofed us for the next few years!

Balaton and beyond...

8th April 2013

Balaton Lake has a split personality – the southern side is loud and brash with high rise hotels attracting those looking for a lively club scene whereas the northern side is more refined suiting the more mature market (that’ll be us then!).

A large proportion of the northern side sits within the Balaton Uplands National Park with strict restrictions on building and access. The park authority has developed a number of attractions for tourists, they just seem to have forgotten to signpost them, a problem we’ve found throughout our travels so far in Hungary! The three we did manage to eventually find were Tapolca Lake Cave (£2.78 entry fee), the Hegyestϋ Geological Site (£1.66 entry fee) and the Sea of Stones in Salfold (free).

The Lake Cave in Tapolca was a laugh – you get your own little aluminium boat to paddle around a short cave system, ducking and diving nimbly under the very low arches.  We spent a little time setting the compact camera on self-timer on various ledges to try and get a picture of both of us in the boat, not so easy with low light and unstable subject! By the time we paddled back to the starting point there was a queue of about 10 people waiting - I dread to think what happens if/when a bus load arrives.

The Hegyestϋ Geological site lies in an area of Europe which was the most crowded volcano field in Europe 8 million years ago. The whole north coast of the lake is a geologists heaven – its at times like these I wish I had spent more time listening in class when I did my Geography ‘O’ level! When we arrived we were the only people there – a couple more cars arrived as we were leaving.

Leaving Balaton lake we headed north and drove right through the heart of Budapest along the Danube – it seemed a bit busy and built up for us (and difficult with the camper van) so we carried on driving and headed out towards the north-eastern corner of Hungary. The main roads are good, the people are friendly, and the attractions and food are the cheapest we have experienced so far…….. we’re enjoying Hungary.

Hello Hungary.....

Friday 5^th April 2013

Slovenia was only ever going to be a transit route through to Hungary but we felt we should at least visit some of it’s treasures. It has a tiny coastline of 29 miles squeezed in between Italy and Croatia – so diverting off track a bit we drove to Piran, a picturesque and colourful harbour town. We had hoped to pick up some useful leaflets and maps from the Tourist Information office to help our with our sightseeing through their country but they weren’t particularly helpful and all we came away with was a single brochure entitled ‘Embrace Piran’ – well we tried to! 

Piran

With our €15 vignette (valid for 1 week) stuck to the windscreen we hit the motorway and before we knew it we were the other side of the country (it's about the size of Wales) and ended up spending the night hemmed in between trucks in a motorway service area, having failed to find anywhere suitable to stay in towns en-route. It was terribly noisy but on the positive side it had a great café, free internet and Dave enjoyed a hot shower for €2.

The next day we stopped briefly in pretty Ptuj and a more helpful Tourist Information office provided all the maps and country brochures we needed – shame we were only 45 miles from the border with Hungary! Talking about borders I can’t get over the way you just drive in and out of countries now – no-one checks passports or vehicles. The barriers are up, the buildings are deserted. I can still remember the feeling of dread when we used to drive up to border posts with all kinds of boat parts secreted away in the Rover and how we ‘left’ cigarettes and women's magazines out on the back parcel shelf to speed our journey through with the officials.

Hungary looks like it’s going to be interesting. The language is unlike anything we have come across before. We are talking big money in the currency – I have 3 x 10,000 Forint notes in my wallet and food, diesel and museum entry fees seem to cheap, if I have worked out the exchange rates correctly. It seems mainly geared up for the German and Austrian market – their English translations are quite amusing....

Our first night we spent in Keszthely on the shore of Lake Balaton. It has a range of museums – none of which we visited but could go back I suppose, they include a..…

Doll Museum

Snail Shell Museum

Historical Panoptikum

Happy Toy Museum

Torture Museum

Nostalgia Collection and Kitch Museum

Erotic Museum (described as Erotic waxworks show from medieval times!!)

Keszthely - Lake Balaton

A short distance from Keszthely is Heviz where we are at the moment. The glossy brochure promotes the health giving properties of the thermal lake and describes it as ‘the biggest biologically active, natural medicinal water in the world’. Looking at the price list we’re not sure yet whether we can afford to dip our smelly feet into the water to benefit from the ‘Wellness’ (in the brochure) from the 754 Kations and Anions (all listed in the brochure!) that Balneotherapy (in the brochure) provides. 

Aerial view of the Spa on Lake Heviz - front page of their glossy brochure!

 My photo taken today - gloomy weather, steamy water (about 24 degrees)

The modern town itself is tidy and prosperous with businesses set up to complement the tourism the thermal pools bring in including large hotels, B&B's, clean restaurants and bars, massage parlours (not all offer the services in the poster above I'm sure!) and shops selling swimsuits and colourful Noodle floats. 

Modern church of Heviz

Lake Balaton is the largest lake in Central Europe and we hope to spend quite a bit of time here on its quieter northern shore before heading off to Budapest.

Leaving Italy......

3rd April 2013

We thought we had done all the major Italian lakes but we found another one! Lake Lugano lies half in Italy and half in Switzerland so we skirted around that on our way back towards Lake Como. For once we had a deadline to meet – getting to the free Moto Guzzi Motorbike Museum in Mandello del Lario for its limited opening times of 3pm – 4pm daily. Forgetting how windy, narrow and slow the lakeside roads are we made it with only ½ hour to spare before the large gates of the factory opened for visitors. We weren’t expecting a guided tour but an elderly gentleman discussed, at length in Italian, the history and finer points of each of the 200 bikes on display. We, along with most of the other multinational group of 30, managed to slope off and do our own thing. 

We re-visited Lake D’Iseo and Lake Garda, stopping at places we hadn’t seen on  way up before finally heading east and leaving the lakes behind us. The rain had been pretty constant for a few days and we weren’t sure what to expect as we parked up in amongst about 80 other campervans in a free car park on the outskirts of Verona. To date we have normally been on our own or with a couple of other vans at most.

A quick ¼ hour walk and we were in the city centre marvelling at the sights, Verona had everything we expected from Florence and Venice and MORE. Like Shrewsbury it is nestled in a tight bend in the river and a large part of the city is traffic free with subtle street lighting and signage. The historical buildings are bright and clean (the ones in Venice are black from pollution), the Piazzas are open and buzzing with people and with an easy climb up to Castel San Petro we were rewarded with fantastic views without having to pay through the nose for them. We spent 2 days walking around the attractions, across bridges, ambling along streets and soaking up the atmosphere in the squares, before setting off again. 

Juliet's balcony (of Romeo & Juliet!)

 Cittadella, east of Vicenza, was an interesting town completely surrounded by large fortified walls and a moat. Dave did a run round the town (getting some odd looks from the locals in his daglo lemon top and trackie bottoms!) – he’s guessing they are about a mile in circumference. Moving on we followed the coast from Lido di Jesolo, just east of Venice, to Trieste. Thereare some interesting seaside towns with long sandy beaches which must come alive when the tourists descend but we (and the plastic dolphin locked up in a beach hut) can’t help wondering where all the visitors are. Hotels are boarded up, cafés are closed, shops have the shutters down, beaches have diggers and litter all over them, car parks are empty….