Ahhh, It's Fall Again...

Siofok, Hungary

September 22, 2007
N46°54.485
E018°03.106

The Tihany hillside with its numerous trails was a perfect break from the fast paced life of the cities. The lush, green hillside with terraced houses, numerous vineyards ready for harvest, views of the famous Abbey Church and old men relaxing and fishing on the banks of village ponds, will be ingrained in our memories forever. The town closed down at around 7:00 PM each night, we were actually turned away for dinner at 7:30 PM, but we enjoyed the tranquil flow of things and appreciated our time in Tihany.

Our ferry cut a path across the calm lake towards Siofok with the sun shining brightly; a perfect fall day—the first day of fall to be exact. It was a glorious morning on Lake Balaton; our thermometers registered 80F, but with the wind chill off of the water a light sweater was still required. Several Hungarians were also enjoying the first day of fall on their sail boats; capturing one more day on the water before the weather turns frigid and the lake is surrounded with snow covered mountains. We simply soaked up the sun for the entire hour and a half and were thankful for having our second fall season of the year.

Siofok isn’t an exciting town this time of year; it’s really happening during summertime, but as kids go back to school the local vendors start closing down the shops near the lake for the winter. We’re only here to catch the single daily train that runs to Zagreb, Croatia. Unfortunately, the ferries don’t begin running across the lake early enough to catch the 10:00 AM train to Zagreb.

We’re making the best of our day in Siofok as we sit on the spacious patio connected to our unit, thumbing through our Lonely Planet “Italy” and reading a few chapters of our paperbacks. Tomorrow is going to be a long travel day with two back-to-back train rides hopefully ending in Split, Croatia.