Balatonalmádi, Hungary

Hotel Azur is the family hotel of the party capital of Hungary, Siófok. It has lots of activities for children, including guided drawing, sports and even mini-olympics while parents may relax over the bar or taking sun baths.

It has also private beach over the Lake Balaton so you don't have to pay the high prices to the Coke Club in order to swim in the lake. You can also enjoy their spa massages, free morning yogas or rent tenniscourt for some afternoon sport fun.

Bikes are available to rent so you can take a trip outside Siófok to see the countryside of Hungary. While it is possible, I recommend to take a ship or a ferry to northern Balaton and rent a bike there. There is much more to see, including Tihány nature reserve and Loćzy cave above Balatonfüred to mention some.

Füred Kemping beach has lots of sandy beach combined with excellent water sports activities. You can rent a windsurf (with an international license) or practise water skiing of -boarding in the 1 kilometer long track built in the water in addition to just enjoy the shallow waters by swimming.

There are also cabins to change into swimming gear and restaurants to fill your stomach after a full day of water sporting activities. In case you are biking around Lake Balaton, this is the place where you want to spend an extra day if you can afford to.

Tihany peninsula in the middle of Lake Balaton is an excellent place to visit by bike. Climb up the hill all the way to Tihany village to see the great views over the lake in both directions.

Siofok is the party capital on Hungary. Thousands of young Hungarians arrive to the beaches and bars of Siofok all the way from Budapest by train to party. Accompanied with the 200 000 visitors it really makes the village one big party.

Coke Club is biggest of these attractions, just by Lake Balaton with organized programme all day long.

Jokai Villakert serves a bit above than average priced food near the party district of Siófok. You can get both traditional Hungarian foods and nprmal restaurant dishes, beefs chicken etc.

Grilled chicken is worth having here. It was served only with grilled vegetables in marinade but man was that good.

User attached a link to jokaivillafort.hu

When you are in dire need of fast food while in Balatonfüred nearby its main railway station, check out this place. Popular amongst natives it serves excellent lunch in very low prices, even on Hungarian scale.

They sure know how to make chicken in Hungary. Sama applies to Bazsalikom Restaurant in particular, their chicken-breast with salad was one of the best I've ever tasted.

Conveniently located at the beach, you have also good views to Lake Balaton so you can enjoy the sights while dining.

Tihany has large nature reserves including three lakes within the peninsula. Most areas are still accessible by foot so leave your bikes and cars at the village and spend a day exploring the nature around the peninsula.

Arriving at Siofok early in the morning. By the dawn we hit the shores of Lake Balaton and found the way to our hotel. There is plenty of things to do at Siofók, including renting cars, bikes, vespas or other means of transportations.

It is also no more than a few hours from Budapest so a daytrip there is also an option but why would anyone bother? (We would, an explanation follows soon.)

Hotel Azur is the family hotel of the party capital of Hungary, Siófok. It has lots of activities for children, including guided drawing, sports and even mini-olympics while parents may relax over the bar or taking sun baths.

Hotel Azur was also our pick of choice when we needed a bit of luxury at the beginning of our vacation. Luckily we chose the Siofók side of Lake Balaton as the biggest city and all of the north side, Balatonfüred and others were mostly occupied by germans and even getting service in english proved to be difficult.

Getting to and from Budapest was easy but in a crowded trains you can't really count on having seats for you. On our way there the train was so overcrowded they had us standing and sitting by the car doors. Although it doesn't compare to the rush in Italian trains during a national holiday it was still a way too uncomfortable.

As it was the week on which Hungarians had their national day there was some extra partying going on at Siófok at the evening. That meant we had to share the car in which we sat in the train with about hundred youngsters coming there to party. That wasn't bad at all, we had nice conversations with a couple of them wondering why on earth we came to Hungary and to Sziget festivals while there were better ones like Tuska in Finland and Helsinki in particular. Go figure.

In the picture is the wonderful tourist information center of Siófok. It's quite close to the railway station and worth a visit just to see its exteriors. This vine-covered old water tower is awesome.

The most disappointing tourist sight seeing there was. The next day, on Sunday, we hiked for an hour or so to get there and for what - a puny cave with nothing interesting to see. It was really no reason to come all the way up here. Luckily at least parts of the remaining day proved to be better.

On this picture I pose by the skull cave lookalike, btw.

From Lóczy cave we decided to try for something different; the water skiing and wind surfing. Füred Kemping by Balatonfüred was the only place it was supposed to be possible by norhern Balaton, but as it were, nothing is ever that simple.

As for water skiing, they had only during mornings those practice sessions you can ski all you want. We, us two total beginners, didn't want to waste our precious dimes there, turned into wind surfing instead. Strangely enough, you would have to have a license for doing that in Hungary, too. Of course the only way you can get it is via day long course which we were of course late already as it was way past midday when we finally arrived there.

To add to the misery, everybody talked germany and we had really trouble understanding eachother.

We didn't take the boat to Balatonfüred for nothing after all. As we were heading back to the boat really unhappy with the events of the day so far we noticed something that made it all go away. There was the annual Balatonfüred wine fair going on - a mile long boulevard crowded with cabins selling local (excellent) wines for less that one euro per glass.

I wish we didn't leave the city in the first place for the "sights" and "sports".

Disclaimer. While there isn't possibility to create sight of day trip entries to travel stories, you'll have to forgive me for duplicating places we slept.

And don't be fooled that our trip would end here, I am just at the very beginning of it. There will be more just when I have time for adding more to it.

On Monday we really got into doing some sports. We rented bikes from our hotel as we thought it was supposed to be cheap there. Little did we know that instead of the low list price we'd be charged per hour for full 1,5 € per hour. And we were happy to pay as originally they tried to charge us five times more by accident.

Put that aside and you have a perfect day out by the Balaton. Sun was shining from cloudless sky and temperature was somewhere well beyond 30°C as it was for the whole week.

Tihány itself was a lovely village on a top of a small hill. It was a tough ride to get up there with our lousy bikes and all (we were lucky they actually found two that worked) but well worth the trouble.

Somewhere on our way back to Siófok we took a wrong turn and ended to a private beach with an outrageous entry fee. We had to turn around and cycle around the whole of Tihany, a good five kilometers extra. While at it, we got to see some nature and animals, too.

Traveling between Siófok and Tihány is easiest by the ferry crossing at Tihány peninsula. Its only a few minutes and you're on the other side. Ferries seem to be pretty frequent too. Another option would be to take the boat from Siófok or Balatonfüred directly and enjoy the boat ride.

This is really something you want to see - national day, or even better, the whole previous week in Hungary. Siófok had big installations by the port, including country fair, where you could get anything from cheese to wines and sheep skins.

We actually got one of those sheep skins, a black one, although we are still not sure whether it was the sheep's or sheep dog's skin as it had such a long white tail.

What was interesting was the party they had set up on the stage. The main performer way - YOU. Yes, it was karaoke stage. The cacophony was unbelievable when you could hear three to four different sources of music overlapping.