Every year in May, our office organises an important meeting of the heads of all IP offices in the EU, called the Cooperation Board. The location varies from year to year–two years ago we were in Ireland, last year in Cyprus, and this year the meeting was held in Hungary. Rather than the more obvious Budapest location, the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office had suggested holding the meeting on the shore of Lake Balaton, in the town Balatonfüred about 150 km from the capital. It turned out to be an excellent choice. I have previously posted a gallery of my visit to the town, but here I focus more on the people and the event itself.
19_1
But before travelling to Hungary Monday morning, I had a Sunday at home and the usual bike ride. In Aigües there was a small street market of books, arts and crafts:
19_2
Across the street there is a house whose inhabitants often display quirky decorations outside. This time they had an art installation, along with banners protesting the planned enlargement of a waste treatment plant a couple of km from the village:
19_3
19_4
19_5
On Monday morning I flew to Budapest along with several colleagues (since we were running the event, a rather large delegation of 10-12 us was needed there). We were picked up at Budapest airport and driven to our hotel in Balatonfüred, the Anna Grand Hotel. Outside my colleague Marian was welcoming the arriving representatives from around the EU:
19_6
After installing myself at the hotel, I went for a walk. The Anna Grand Hotel is located in a beautiful park, just a couple of hundred meters from the shore of the lake:
19_7
The park is clearly a space for relaxation:
19_8
I continued to the lake, stopping at this rather eye-catching memorial to the victims of a shipwreck that happened here in 1954:
19_9
I found a small outdoor bar near the harbour where I sat down with a beer and looked at the people passing by:
19_10
In the evening we had an informal welcome reception at a restaurant near the hotel. Agris is the head of the Latvian Patent Office. He suffered a bad leg fracture playing basketball back in March, but that does not stop him from travelling:
19_11
Agris uses a special device to replace crutches. With this, he is sure not to put weight on his foot and moves around with surprising agility. He expected to be able to walk normally within a couple of weeks:
19_12
Because of the importance of the event, we had two members of our communications service to take pictures throughout. One of them was the trainee Francesca. I like this photo I snapped of her despite the strong backlight and flare:
19_13
The head of our office, João, makes some remarks while Szabolcs, the head of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office, listens:
19_14
Agris at the bar with James Kelly, head of the Irish IP office:
19_15
On Tuesday morning I went for a walk to the lake, enjoying the morning light. This is our hotel:
19_16
Lake Balaton is central Europe’s biggest lake. The white building on the other shore is Tihany Abbey which we were going to visit later in the week:
19_17
Then it was time to start the work. This is how we spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday morning:
19_18
Besides the meetings in the big room, we also had breakout sessions dedicated to various topics, including one on the various AI tools we are introducing at our office:
19_19
In the evening we had a gala dinner, during which our two photographers took many pictures. Here, Fany is chimping together with Marian:
19_20
Pre-dinner drinks:
19_21
On Wednesday morning, I walked down to the lakeshore promenade again:
19_22
Most of the statues and markers in the park around the hotel were 100% Hungarian. But I was intrigued by this monument to Rabindranath Tagore, a great Indian writer who spent some time in Balatonfüred in the 1920s:
19_23
19_24
We finished the working part of the meeting at noon on Wednesday, and the rest of the day was devoted to social activities and touring the area. We started with lunch at a restaurant called Figula, on a hill overlooking the town and the lake. The owner explained the wines and the food:
19_25
During lunch, I sat across the table with this lovely lady from the Polish Patent Office:
19_26
Polish-Portuguese conversation. The two ladies are the heads of the IP offices of their respective countries:
19_27
A toast at the neighbouring table:
19_28
At some point, the dog of the house appeared:
19_29
He was rewarded with cuddles and treats:
19_30
The next item on the agenda was a visit to Herend, a 200-year old porcelain factory:
19_31
Part of the visit was to try our hand at painting the fine patterns on Herend porcelain pieces. We each painted a bookmark which was then laminated in plastic to create a nice souvenir:
19_32
19_33
The painting was an interesting exercise which gave us an appreciation of the fine art of porcelain painting:
19_34
Marian usually looks serious, so I was pleased to catch her smiling:
19_35
After the painting, we toured the company museum:
19_36
We finished the visit with Herend employees demonstrating their craft:
19_37
19_38
19_39
After the visit to Herend, we moved on to Tihany Abbey, a Benedictine abbey founded in 1055. The founding document contains the first recorded written text in Hungarian, and king Andrew I was buried in the abbey’s church following his death in 1060:
19_40
The church of the abbey is quite impressive:
19_41
As I usually do in such places, I lit two candles in the memory of my mother (one from me, one from my sister):
19_42
There are 11 monks living in the abbey. One of the sources of income are various drinks and other products made from lavender, which we tasted at the end of our visit:
19_43
The day ended with dinner at a nearby restaurant called Echo. Before entering, people were posing for pictures:
19_44
Since some of the dishes were quite saucy (e.g. goulash), we were issued with stylish bibs:
19_45
After dinner there was a performance of traditional Hungarian dancing. Here is our deputy head, Edyta, watching intently, alongside Karin from Slovenia and Ewa from Poland:
19_46
The dancers were impressive:
19_47
19_48
19_49
19_50
Then members of the audience were invited to join in, including José Antonio, chairman of our budget committee:
19_51
As always on such occasions, Edyta was there too:
19_52
My final picture of the evening, the Tihany Abbey at night:
19_53
Our flight home was on Thursday evening, so Thursday was basically a day off for most of us. Some went to Budapest in the morning to spend the day there, but I chose to explore Balatonfüred. The town is small but interesting to visit. One of the highlights was an art gallery near my hotel, located in what used to be the summer residence of a senior church figure:
19_54
There was a nice exhibition of works by Hungarian painter József Egry (1883-1951):
19_55
An example of Egry’s works, “Dockworkers”, painted during a tour of Belgium in 1910:
19_56
Then it was time to fly home, back to walking Mochi and meeting the neighbourhood cats:
