We decided to stay a few days in the countryside to have some fresh air and a view.

Balatonfüred was in our mind, a little town very vibrant (and crowded) in the tourist season, but nothing this on the first week of January. See more: https://balatonfured.hu/en/the-history-of-balatonfured/

Day one: Long walks, nice views, good food in the empty and abandoned city.

Good news: the museums were open, only one was closed.

An interesting connection to India is the sculpture of Rabindranath Tagore, who was cured here regarding his heart problems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore

“On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived in Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.”

We had some lovely days and then visited three very interesting museums in timeline order.

Day two:

The Jókai Mór memorial home (see: https://balatonfured.hu/en/2017/12/10/museums-and-galleries/) offers a glimpse of view inside the writer’s home at the turn of the century or more in the last decade of the 19th century. It is very interesting how these household objects reflect our childhood, the granma’s pantry, the old icebox we had before the electric fridge and the scale, very same we use today in the kitchen.

Girl’s room in the villa.

Very nice still working kitchen stove and cookware.

The familiar scale, we have a very similar one.

The old icebox for cooling.