Danubius Thermal Heviz

... must cost an<br>absolute fortune! You step inside just about any building wearing a<br>jumper and jacket, and within around 60 seconds you have sweat pouring<br>from your forehead - it's crazy! Concepts of energy efficiency<br>definitely haven't reached here yet! <br>

... seems to do the trick.<br><br>Short of anything more going wrong with my trip back to Budapest -<br>after a short train ride from Keszthely, I discovered the connecting<br>train to Budapest is either running really late, not running<br>altogether, or has crashed somewhere, and so I am therefore forced to<br>wait in this 1-horsse town with no horse an extra hour for the next<br>train - I'll be in Budapest tonight and Ben Gurion Airport by lunch<br>time tomorrow.<br>

... a sign telling me that before hand...<br><br><br><br>This place was pretty cool. In the pavilion in the middle of the lake<br>people were relaxing on sun-chairs like it was the middle of summer.<br>Funnily enough all the outdoor sundecks were totally empty! You could<br>immerse yourself in the lake from within the pavilion, or take a step<br>outside and go in from there (and then swim between the two areas). The<br>lake is quite deep and they have built various things around the lake ...

I arrived at Keszthely feeling knackered, we couldn't find a campsite and endured a 2+km walk (with packs!!) away from the train station, until we were guided in the right direction. I spent the afternoon sleeping whilst LP went to the baths in the neighbouring town of Heviz.<br><br>In the evening we walked into town and were a little ...

... will follow later ;-)<br><br>Unfortunately one of the extension tubes for the tire has come loose, broke off and gave us a flat tire, luckily filling the tyre again did the job! Sun protection screens are made, seat covers in place, cupboards now stay closed&#8230; stuff sorted out, we are ready to continue the journey!<br><br>And&#8230;&#8230;we slept on the roof the last 2 nights!!!, under the stars on the mattress ;-))<br><br>Overlooking ...

... Very beautiful background!<br> We were a litlle bit worried because some hungarian people had told us that towns around Balaton were very expensive, so we thought we'd find prohibitive prices, and I suppose that's true for hungarian standard of living, but for western european people this area is quite cheap. As spaniards, we found Keszthely was a quite cheap place!<br><br>July 27<br>We sleep till late and ...

... camp, let alone getting out on the water.<br><br>So it was a pretty dismal day spent at the camp, but as they say, every cloud has a silver lining. We went to the restaurant at the campground, and Jamie had the best steak he has had since leaving Australia, Natalie had a Beef Stroganoff to die for, Paige had a homemade citrus gelati and Declan had some pancakes filled with melted chocolate... so not everything is bad!!!<br>

(76 miles)<br>Boy what a boring ride through plain countryside. Everything is a little more spread out here in Hungary. You don't get the quaint little village every 3 kilometers it's more like every ten and then there isn't much to look at. Every town seems to have the same yellow church and futuristic silver water tower. The roads are pretty bad as well. Chrissy enjoys what she calls Frogger as she ...

... countryside. Maybe some of us enjoyed the day too much as an unnamed member of our party painted the station door back in Sárvár from top to bottom with spew... and back in Szombathely the last we saw of our guide was when he fell into the bushes in some traffic island on the way back to the university.

We found a fantastic campsite in Hevis, right next door to the thermal lake, with great cycle paths to Lake Balaton. We felt so comfortable and peaceful here. The lake is between 26 - 33 degrees and has (supposed) healing properties. It really is a proper lake, fed by a spring with ducks and lillies in it. Chris and I loved it, you could stay in for hours and hours. We spend a few days ...