Lake Balaton

Our second week in Hungary was in a rented house in Szigliget on the north western shore of Lake Balaton. Although we'd a hire car we decided to hire bikes too for around £20 each for 5 days. The bikes weren't up to much - heavy with mountain bike tyres, 21 gears and no suspension, but we only wanted them for short trips to the local beaches, towns and sights. Cycling is very popular here with whole families cycling, and good cycle paths away from or parallel to the roads. In fact there's a 200 km bike route that goes around the entire edge of the lake, most of which is on purpose built asphalt bike tracks. If I had my road bike and it was cooler I'd be tempted. It's pretty hot and sunny this week - 35C at midday, so we plan to cycle mostly in the mornings and evenings. However today (Tuesday) we cycled west to Keszthely which took most of the day, including stops at a palace, museum, restaurant and beach, and was a round trip of about 35 km, almost all on cycle paths. I managed to cycle over a 2 foot grey green snake, but it seemed to survive! Most of the other cyclists were day trippers on hybrid or mountain bikes, but there were a few road bikes and quite a few heavily laden bikes with front and rear panniers on camping trips presumably.