KESZTHELY

A tradition of freethinking that dates back to the eighteenth century gives KESZTHELY a sense of superiority over other resorts, and its university ensures that life isn't wholly taken over by tourism. The Belváros and strand somehow absorb thousands of visitors gracefully, without looking bleak and abandoned out of season. With the Festetics Palace to admire, and a thermal lake awaiting bathers at Héviz nearby, Keszthely is the best hangout on the Balaton.

Walking up from the train and bus stations, you'll pass the Balaton Museum (Tues-Sun 9am-5pm), which covers the region's zoology, ethnography and archeology, with artifacts dating back to the first century AD when road building Romans disrupted the lifestyle of local Celtic tribes. Downtown Keszthely begins around Fö tér - an ambiguous square in the middle of which stands the Trinity Statue, erected in 1770. Overlooking the square, the much-remodelled Church of Our Lady of the Hungarians was originally built in the fourteenth century, and still retains its Gothic rose window above the main portal. From here on, Kossuth utca is given over to cafés, buskers and strollers, with a flea market on Wednesday mornings.

Heading up towards the palace, you'll pass the birthplace of Karl Goldmark (1830-1915) on the corner of Fejér utca. The son of a poor Jewish cantor who enrolled him in Sopron's school of music, Goldmark went on to study at the Vienna Conservatory. Almost shot as a rebel for giving concerts in Györ during the 1848 Revolution, he survived to compose Merlin, Zrinyi and The Queen of Sheba. The Marzipan Museum and Pastry Shop at Katona József utca 19 is just below the palace gates - well worth the detour for anyone with a sweet tooth.

The aristocratic Festetics family are chiefly remembered for Count György (1755-1819), founder of Keszthely's agricultural university and the Baroque Festetics Palace. During the early nineteenth century, the palace's salons attracted the leading lights of Magyar literature (now recalled by memorial trees) as Hungary's first public forum for criticism. The palace's highlights are its gilt, mirrored ballroom and the Helikon Library, a masterpiece of joinery by János Kerbl, containing 52,000 books in diverse languages. Chinese vases and tiled stoves jostle for space with portraits of the family racehorses and dachshunds (whose pedigrees are proudly noted), and the pelts and heads of tigers, bears and other animals shot by Count Windishgraetz. There are concerts here over summer.

Count György's most useful contribution was an agricultural college, or Georgikon, the first of its kind in Europe. Students attending the three-year course lived and worked together in a cluster of whitewashed buildings below the palace at Bercsényi utca 67, where dairy and viticulture equipment, cartwright's tools, old Ford tractors and the like are now displayed (daily 9am-6pm). The Georgikon was the forerunner of today's Agrártudományi University, a green and daffodil-yellow pile halfway along Széchenyi utca.

Arriving by ferry near the main strand, you can walk up Erzsébet királynö útja into the centre (10-15min). The train and intercity bus stations are further south, at the bottom end of Mártirok útja, but most buses entering town drop passengers on downtown Fö tér, sparing them a 600-metre trudge along Kossuth utca.