Shore of Lake Balaton, Tagore Promenade - Balatonfüred, Hungary

Location:

GPS coordinates: Latitude 46°57'17", Longitude 17°53'48" (N46 57.28 - E17 53.8) Map

Bust of Jenő Huszka Hungarian composer

It is a bronze replica from 1995, based on a limestone statue created by Dezső Mészáros in 1968.

Nowadays the famous Anna Ball of Balatonfüred is opened with the Anna Ball Waltz which was composed by the famous Hungarian composer Jenő Huszka (or Eugen Huszka, 1875-1960) in 1958. The current bronze bust statue on the Tagore Promenade is a copy, because the original limestone artwork (created by Dezső Mészáros) was vandalized in the 1990s and it was impossible to restore. The bronze replica was inaugurated on the same place in 1995.

"Mermaids of Balaton" statue and ornamental fountain

Originally created by Ms. Éva Vastagh in 1942, renovated by Mr. Béla Raffay in 1998

There's a fountain in the park of the Tagore Promenade with the statue of three ladies. The facial features and the mysterious smile of the central female figure somehow seems familiar, and this is not by accident.

The "Mermaids of Balaton" (or "Three mermaids") sculpture group was ordered by Zoltán Brázay factory owner for his newly built mansion in Balatonfüred. Éva Vastagh Hungarian sculptor, daughter of the also famous sculptor György Vastag was selected and asked to create the artwork. It was the customer's request to somehow include the face of the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman into the sculptural composition as a sign of his adoration, because her performance in the "Intermezzo" film grabbed him so much.

The statue itself was made of Carrara marble which was brought here from Italy. The train which delivered the stone block was hit by a bomb in Yugoslavia, but fortunately the marble block survived it undamaged.

Finally the statue group was completed (including the smile of Ingrid Bergman) and in 1942 the fountain was placed in the Brázay Villa (or mansion), on the side that faces Lake Balaton. There is a concrete evidence for it in the "Fény és Árnyék" ("Light and Shadow") movie from 1943, because some of the scenes were filmed in the garden of the Brázay Mansion and the fountain was already there. Unfortunately the sculptor Ms. Éva Vastagh couldn't experienced it because he died young in 1942, when she was only 42.

After the World War II in the communist era the mansion was deprivatized and it became a resort of the State Party, only for privileged people. Some time after after the political system change in Hungary (1989) the artwork was acquired by the local government of Balatonfüred town. Then in 1998 it was restored by Béla Raffay and placed to the current location, in the park near the Tagore Promenade, so it became a nice public statue that is pleasing to the eye.

The "Őszöd" sailboat is in front of the silhouette of the Benedictine Abbey in Tihany

One of the major sports events at Lake Balaton is the annually held Bay-crossing Swimming Competition (in Hungarian "Öbölátúszás"), where the daring people can swim 3.5 kilometers between the beach of Balatonfüred and Tihany to win the Wesselényi Memorial Trophy. The distance of the Bay Crossing Competition is slightly shorter than the grand Balaton-crossing Swimming Contest (in Hungarian "Balaton-átúszás"), the latter is between Révfülöp and Balatonboglár and 5.2 kilometers in distance. But probably thanks to this there are more than one-third of the participants are from older age group, and that's why it is one of the largest senior swimming contest in the world. The first Bay-crossing Swimming Contest was held in 1992 and since then it was cancelled only in one single year.

The fountain named as the "Bathing women"

The statue in the fountain was created by Abel Ramirez Aguilar mexican sculptor in 2005.

Since 2004 a foundation and the local government annually holds the so-called International Stone Sculpture Symposium (in Hungarian "Nemzetközi Kőszobrász Szimpózium") in Balatonfüred. The point is that local and foreign sculptors are creating limestone and granite artworks in public in the park of the Széchényi Ferenc Horticultural Vocational School (Hungarian: "Széchényi Ferenc Kertészeti Szakképző Iskola") for a different theme every year. The fountain-sculpture in front of the entrance of the Wesselényi Beach was created this way in 2005, the theme of that year was "Wind and water". The sculpture is named "Bathing women" or "A woman jumping into the water" and created by the Mexican sculptor Abel Ramirez Aguilar. The sculpture was placed here in the middle of the fountain in 2006.

Bust statue of Tibor Déry Hungarian writer

Created by Olivér Sigmond in 1979, it stands on the current site from 1989.

The bust of the Hungarian writer Tibor Déry (1894-1977) on the Tagore Promenade in Balatonfüred was created by Olivér Sigmond. The statue was inaugurated by Lajos Lőrincze Hungarian linguist in 1979, in the garden of the Déry Villa (the writer's favorite holiday house) on the nearby Tamás Hill. Then in 1989 it was moved from here to the current location, the lakeside of the Balaton.

Flowers of the Rose Garden and the lake, viewed from the promenade

The promenade was named after the Bengali (Indian) poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). In 1926 the artist was healed and recovered in Balatonfüred in the Heart Hospital ("Szívkórház") of Balatonfüred, and in memory of this he planted a lime tree (linden tree) here. A legend says that if an old man plants a lime tree he will see when the tree comes into leaf. It may be some truth in it because after the planting the old Rabindranath Tagore lived another fourteen years.

Many other famous people followed the action of the Indian poet and planted trees on the Tagore Promenade. Without being exhaustive, for example Indira Gandhi former Prime Minister of India or the Nobel Prize-winning Hungarian scientist Jenő Wigner visited the park in Balatonfüred and planted a tree here.