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Hanging out in Heviz
The town of Heviz, population 5,000, is nestled among undulating hills and countryside in the North-West of Hungary and is known for its four hectare lake of “natural biologically active sulfurous medicinal” water set among a forest park. The lake’s thermal waters are said to have unrivalled healing powers for the treatment of rheumatism, locomotion disorders and certain gynecological problems, though we are not sure which particular problems. What it means is that this is a popular town for the infirm to visit and the streets are filled with people of all shapes, sizes and physical disabilities wobbling to or from the lake, armed with flotation rings in order that they can just drift about for hours among the water lilies soaking in the mineral goodness. This is not Party Central, the average age of visitors is sixty years and, while almost the average age, hopefully we are still more firm than most.
The town itself is very pretty with tree-lines streets leading to the lake and dozens of guest houses and hotels, places offering therapeutic massage and probably more sets of swimwear on sale than there are people. The nearby countryside is quite beautiful and, given the high temperatures, surprisingly green and lush with woodland intersected by fields of sunflowers and others of corn. There are vineyards and roadside stalls with watermelons; quite the idyllic setting.
Perhaps here for the first time, however, we have stumbled with language. Hungarian is said to resemble no other tongue and it is almost impossible to even work out the hellos, pleases and thank yous. It would appear that Germans are the most frequent visitors and theirs is the second language, English languishing some way down the list. So our communication has turned more to sign, and trying to figure out menus is a challenge. We should have been alert to this as, although Hungarian Andrea reassured us that English is widely spoken, she did not speak a word of it herself when she arrived in England. That should have been a clue.
To make the most of the mid thirty degree daytime heat we headed for the cooler waters of nearby Lake Balaton, to a place called Balatonbereny which is billed as having the sort of beach where Marty could take his top off without fear of being arrested. It was hardly a beach we found, more a gap among the reeds where a wooden pier jutted out in to the lake to allow swimmers unimpeded access to the water. Surrounding all of this a nudist camp, and if the visitors to Heviz were of all shapes and sizes so too were those here, although the average age would have been younger and the suntans on display ranged from ghostly white to deep, deep all over brown.
When in Hungary, we thought, we should do as the Germans do and so we joined them for the afternoon, spread out among the families relaxing in the sun. If there is one observation to be made it would be that shaving is the fashion du jour for both men and women, so for Marty it is a trim leaving just a stylish little tuft and for Kaelene a heart-shape with the letter M lovingly sculpted in the middle.