Its been quite a while now since I updated. We've been chilling out quite a lot recently. Not really filling our days with huge amounts of running around or looking for places to eat. So you'd think I'd have more time to tippety-tap on here. But I've felt less inclined to do so for some odd reason. Guess I'm just not feeling quite so rushed. Getting complacent. Bad habit to get into.

So I gotta talk about Keszthely. It wasn't too long to get there from Budapest on train. That's part of the reason we went. Sort of halfway to Croatia. We were also quite interested in seeing Lake Balaton, the largest lake in central Europe. Its a very pretty place. The train journey was one of the nicest we'd had, with plenty of lovely countryside. Keszthely itself is quite small. As we're still not quite into the tourist season it was also very quiet. A short walk to our apartment and we were greeted by an old lady who could barely speak a word of English. Interestingly though, her German was top-notch (something we noticed about almost everybody here). I guess they get a lot of German tourists here. That, or its been left over from the old Austro-Hungarian empire. The apartment owner phoned her daughter up who told me the crack. We had to follow her mother to the actual house where we'd be staying and we'd have the whole place to ourselves. A 3 bedroom house! For under 20 quid a night! Well, it was a bit old-fashioned and not all that clean. We also had no wi-fi. But we could barely complain. Besides the old girl was so sweet. The location was lovely. Very close to the lake too. And after spending so much time wandering around in cities it was great to get some peace.

We weren't quite expecting such a level of peace as we got though. Our first excursion into the town centre was an unusually quiet one. There was nobody around! Place was like a ghost town. We decided not to bother going much out of our way to see the town, it wasn't lovely anyway. We could spend ore time at the lakeside.

That was pretty. Very pretty. In the summer time, this area apparently gets very busy with tourists and there are three 'strands' along the shore of the lake at this part. The first has a lot of cafes as well as an arcade. Wifi connectivity too. We spent most of our time here as it was closest to our house. Having spent a lot of time away from my computer it was pretty cool to pick up a gun and shoot off some digital faces! I spent a bit of money there. Never pulled off my double credit, guns akimbo move though. For shame, but showing off aint healthy. They also had a cool two-player game there. Like a cross between air hockey and pinball. You got two moveable paddles and about a million balls come flying out the sides of the table. You gotta stop em getting into your goal while wacking them into your opponent's. Why don't we have this game at home!? This strand was a great place to chill and what nightlife there was in town was here.

The second strand was a little further along the shore. Past a boat yard and a bunch of fishermen and under a fence (we probably went the wrong way). This seemed a more peaceful place than the other. There was a small sandy beach with a few kids playing in the water and one or two fishermen. A few older people around who looked like they'd spent their entire lives walking around sunny spots in their swimwear. Very brown and wrinkly. Maybe German... Anyway, we spent a good few hours sunbathing there.

Not a great deal more to say about Keszthely. We did meet an older Irish couple who had a holiday home there. We also had one day of insane rain. It went on and on all night and all day. Of course this was one of the days when we were desperately needing some shopping and Katie no longer had any suitable clothes. So I left for some bits and bobs, some money and even managed to find a brolly for Kate which hasn't even been used yet. I got home very wet indeed. But we entertained ourselves with a Yahtzee contest and some Hungarian Spongebob on the TV.

That's about it. I'm sure the place is a lot busier in the summer. Seems like a brilliant place to take your family. And obviously, after having such a great time in Budapest, not so far away, definately a place to see. We generally enjoyed Hungary and the people there too.

Croatia next...