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A coffin-shaped hulk with four villages prostrated at its feet, backed by dead volcanoes ranging across the Tapolca basin, the Badacsony is one of the Balaton's most striking features. When the land that was to become Hungary first surfaced, molten magma erupted from the seabed and cooled into a great semicircle of basalt columns, 210 metres high, which form the Badacsony's southeastern face. The rich volcanic soil of the lower slopes has supported vineyards since the Age of Migrations, when the Avars buried grape seeds with their dead to ensure that the afterlife wouldn't be lacking in wine. Nowadays, the harvest is blended into Badacsonyi Kéknyelü, Zöldszilváni, Szurkebarát ("Grey Monk") or Olaszrizling, and there's a harvest festival during the second week in September.

Although trains and buses also call at Badacsonytomaj, Badacsony Lábdihegy and Balatontördemic, it is BADACSONY proper that gets all the tourists and ferries from Boglárlelle, Fonyód and Szigliget. If you don't fancy embarking on the wine trail immediately, pay a visit to the Egry Museum, just over the rail level crossing on Egri sétány (May-Sept Tues-Sun 10am-6pm). József Egry (1883-1951) was born into a poor local family and worked as a locksmith and roofer before winning a scholarship to the Academy of Fine Arts. His paintings capture the ever-changing moods and light of the Balaton.

Otherwise, hop into one of the jeep-taxis leaving from in front of the post office on Park utca - you’ll be transported 3km uphill through the vineyards to the Róza Szegedi House. This charming residence is often called the Kisfaludy House after Róza's poet husband, Sándor Kisfaludy, who lauded the Balaton's beauties in verse. Just before the house is the Róza Szegedi Museum (Tues-Sun 10am-5pm).

Walking in the Badacsony

From Kisfaludy House you can follow a path up to the Rose Rock (Rózsakö), of which it's said that if a man and woman sit upon it with their backs to the Balaton and think about each other, they'll be married by the end of the year. The trail continues through the beech woods to the Kisfaludy lookout tower (437m), about an hour's walk from Kisfaludy House, and on to the Stone Gate (Kökapu), where sightseers ooh-aah at two massive basalt towers flanking a precipitous drop.

Longer hikes into the hills further north offer an escape from the crowds (ask for maps from the tourist office). A four-kilometre walk from the Stone Gate will bring you to Gulács-hegy, a perfectly conical hill (393m) near the Nemesgulács halt for trains en route to Tapolca. The Szent György-hegy (415m), on the far side of the tracks, boasts some impressive basalt organ pipes and the region's finest vineyards, where Szurkebarát is produced. A few kilometres to the east, a ruined castle that was once defended against the Turks by women crowns 375-metre-high Csobánc-hegy. Serious hikers might consider pushing on to Szentbékkálla and the beautiful Seas of Stone, created from layers of sand and pebbles deposited by the ancient Pannonian Sea.

The last three hikes will probably take the best part of a day and leave you closer to Tapolca than the Balaton. It's advisable to buy a 1:80,000-scale map of the region.