(This article also appears in Hungarian. A cikk magyar változatáért kattintsatok ide: Utazás régi időkbe)

Today we watched our last sunset on the Balaton for this summer.

With a little bit of saudade and a lot of excitement tomorrow we will start on the road again. For saying goodbye, we decided to visit the wonderful peninsula of Tihany. And imagine, this time we took a ferry.

After an amazing but too short boat trip we walked up to the old town of Tihany. From here you can see all over the Balaton …

… and discover old folk houses.

We also found the “Yard of old times”. It is a portal to another world, full of wonders and treasures. It is one of the best restaurants in Hungary, where you can get food for body and soul. After we tried their delicious food, we had the chance to talk with the owner, Róbert Papp.

“It is truly a manifestation of a dream” he started to talk about his restaurant with a smile. 11 years ago he bought the place together with his family. “Believe it or not, in this yard before it was nothing. We built everything up after our own imagination. I grew up in Tihany and I am still enchanted by this time.” This you can see everywhere around you. Every object in the yard has a soul and tells its own story.

Specially the beautiful wood carvings fascinated us. “They are messengers of the past. I see familiar faces in them and remember stories from my youth.” When they started to build up the place, Róbert and his family were inviting sculpture makers and provided food and accommodation food them. The artists were creating the collection of magical sculptures, that found their home in the Yard of older times.

But not only the ambient, but also the food is extraordinary. The “Yard of old times” is the only restaurant in Hungary that was awarded with the Premium Hungaricum price. “All our food and drinks are homemade. We do not have any trademarks, we brew the beer by ourselves, we make sirup, marmalade, the sausages, and we even have a baker that makes the bread. And what we cannot make by ourselves, we buy from local homemade producers.”

And this you can taste. For that it is not surprising that Róbert’s restaurant has from year to year more guests. “In the beginning we were four people working in the restaurant, me, my wife and my two sons. Now we are in the 12^th season and we are 28. It is really hard work, the owners work every day from 8 in the morning to midnight. But I still love it. As long as I feel like this, I will continue doing it.”

By writing this article we remember again the wonderful time that we spent in Róbert’s restaurant, and we can highly recommend if you visit Tihany, not to miss the “Yard of old times”.

Love and kisses,

Zoé and Joshua