Lake Balaton is just a couple of hours south of Budapest and was a great escape from the heat of the city. After hearing there was a huge music festival, Balaton Sound, I decided it was the best way to spend the weekend. The lake is a huge resort town for most Hungarians, in some ways it reminded me a lot of the Jersey shore.  Of course, instead of salt water you had fresh and waves were replaced by hundreds of inflatable rafts where Hungarians would float the day a way. At night, you would walk the streets by the railroad and eat at outdoor cafes and shop at a million different touristy boutiques. It felt great to get a little bit of insight into what Hungarian relaxation was and I felt special that I was one of the few foreign tourists there. The music festival as well, was mostly all young Hungarians, and very few foreign tourists. I ended up going to the music festival for one day and suffered through an extremely hot day, but was able to see some amazing music set right on the water and listen to some very cool DJs. After three or so days, I was set to return to Budapest to catch an overnight train to Romania......an adventure which would be more than I expected. 

We arrived at Lake Balaton after spending a couple of days in Budapest and it was a sight that completely took my breath away! Lake Balaton (or "the Hungarian sea" as some like to call it) is the largest lake in central Europe and is 50 miles long and is around 50 miles south west of Budapest. When we arrived it was the 23rd September & it was a warm evening, the sun was setting and the water had a still silkyness to it. It felt like we had arrived in paradise! Later that night we blew up the rubber dingy and we set sail and onboard we brought wine, chocolate and beer! we couldn't believe the cheap rubber dingy held us both :D it was a full moon and this was one of my highlights of the trip. There were thousands of flies and at first I thought they were mosquitos but they weren't so all I had to worry about was my jumper and trousers which were covered in splattered flies (we had to handwash everything while we were away) :( The hot days at Lake Balaton were spent sitting by the lakeside singing and playing guitar, swimming and more dingy trips! You only have to spend cash if you're going to stay in a campsite while your there and for other things like renting a boat and restaurants, we stayed in a campsite which was reasonably cheap but we smuggled 3 people in! If you are in a camper van that is quite easy to do! just hide the other in the back.. cheeky. If ever your in Hungary I reccommend you spend a couple of days there, bbq's and beer by the lakeside during sunsets and swimming and sunbathing under the hot sun during the day time. Oh and if you go summer time don't worry about the flies, they're not biters.. they just look like they are! :)