{"id":5080,"date":"2026-05-26T05:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=5080"},"modified":"2026-05-26T05:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:30:17","slug":"week-19-lake-balaton","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=5080","title":{"rendered":"Week 19: Lake Balaton"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 Balatonf\u00fcred about 150 km from the capital. It turned out to be an excellent choice. I have previously posted a gallery<\/a> of my visit to the town, but here I focus more on the people and the event itself.<\/p>\n

19_1<\/strong>
\nBut before travelling to Hungary Monday morning, I had a Sunday at home and the usual bike ride. In Aig\u00fces there was a small street market of books, arts and crafts:
\n\"1050415\"\/<\/p>\n

19_2<\/strong>
\nAcross 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:
\n\"1050411\"\/<\/p>\n

19_3<\/strong>
\n\"1050413\"\/<\/p>\n

19_4<\/strong>
\n\"1050414\"\/<\/p>\n

19_5<\/strong>
\nOn 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 Balatonf\u00fcred, the Anna Grand Hotel. Outside my colleague Marian was welcoming the arriving representatives from around the EU:
\n\"DSF3077\"\/<\/p>\n

19_6<\/strong>
\nAfter 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:
\n\"DSF3079\"\/<\/p>\n

19_7<\/strong>
\nThe park is clearly a space for relaxation:
\n\"DSF3084\"\/<\/p>\n

19_8<\/strong>
\nI continued to the lake, stopping at this rather eye-catching memorial to the victims of a shipwreck that happened here in 1954:
\n\"DSF3087\"\/<\/p>\n

19_9<\/strong>
\nI found a small outdoor bar near the harbour where I sat down with a beer and looked at the people passing by:
\n\"DSF3089\"\/<\/p>\n

19_10<\/strong>
\nIn 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:
\n\"DSF3097\"\/<\/p>\n

19_11<\/strong>
\nAgris 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:
\n\"DSF3095\"\/<\/p>\n

19_12<\/strong>
\nBecause 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:
\n\"DSF3099\"\/<\/p>\n

19_13<\/strong>
\nThe head of our office, Jo\u00e3o, makes some remarks while Szabolcs, the head of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office, listens:
\n\"DSF3101\"\/<\/p>\n

19_14<\/strong>
\nAgris at the bar with James Kelly, head of the Irish IP office:
\n\"DSF3112\"\/<\/p>\n

19_15<\/strong>
\nOn Tuesday morning I went for a walk to the lake, enjoying the morning light. This is our hotel:
\n\"DSF3116\"\/<\/p>\n

19_16<\/strong>
\nLake 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:
\n\"DSF3121\"\/<\/p>\n

19_17<\/strong>
\nThen it was time to start the work. This is how we spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday morning:
\n\"R002170\"\/<\/p>\n

19_18<\/strong>
\nBesides 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:
\n\"R002150\"\/<\/p>\n

19_19<\/strong>
\nIn the evening we had a gala dinner, during which our two photographers took many pictures. Here, Fany is chimping together with Marian:
\n\"DSF3144\"\/<\/p>\n

19_20<\/strong>
\nPre-dinner drinks:
\n\"DSF3145\"\/<\/p>\n

19_21<\/strong>
\nOn Wednesday morning, I walked down to the lakeshore promenade again:
\n\"DSF3148\"\/<\/p>\n

19_22<\/strong>
\nMost 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 Balatonf\u00fcred in the 1920s:
\n\"DSF3150\"\/<\/p>\n

19_23<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3151\"\/<\/p>\n

19_24<\/strong>
\nWe 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:
\n\"DSF3167\"\/<\/p>\n

19_25<\/strong>
\nDuring lunch, I sat across the table with this lovely lady from the Polish Patent Office:
\n\"DSF3173\"\/<\/p>\n

19_26<\/strong>
\nPolish-Portuguese conversation. The two ladies are the heads of the IP offices of their respective countries:
\n\"DSF3180\"\/<\/p>\n

19_27<\/strong>
\nA toast at the neighbouring table:
\n\"DSF3174\"\/<\/p>\n

19_28<\/strong>
\nAt some point, the dog of the house appeared:
\n\"DSF3181\"\/<\/p>\n

19_29<\/strong>
\nHe was rewarded with cuddles and treats:
\n\"DSF3187\"\/<\/p>\n

19_30<\/strong>
\nThe next item on the agenda was a visit to Herend, a 200-year old porcelain factory:
\n\"DSF3194\"\/<\/p>\n

19_31<\/strong>
\nPart 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:
\n\"DSF3198\"\/<\/p>\n

19_32<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3205\"\/<\/p>\n

19_33<\/strong>
\nThe painting was an interesting exercise which gave us an appreciation of the fine art of porcelain painting:
\n\"DSF3207\"\/<\/p>\n

19_34<\/strong>
\nMarian usually looks serious, so I was pleased to catch her smiling:
\n\"DSF3209\"\/<\/p>\n

19_35<\/strong>
\nAfter the painting, we toured the company museum:
\n\"DSF3211\"\/<\/p>\n

19_36<\/strong>
\nWe finished the visit with Herend employees demonstrating their craft:
\n\"DSF3215\"\/<\/p>\n

19_37<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3216\"\/<\/p>\n

19_38<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3219\"\/<\/p>\n

19_39<\/strong>
\nAfter 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:
\n\"DSF3223\"\/<\/p>\n

19_40<\/strong>
\nThe church of the abbey is quite impressive:
\n\"DSF3225\"\/<\/p>\n

19_41<\/strong>
\nAs I usually do in such places, I lit two candles in the memory of my mother (one from me, one from my sister):
\n\"DSF3231\"\/<\/p>\n

19_42<\/strong>
\nThere 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:
\n\"DSF3236\"\/<\/p>\n

19_43<\/strong>
\nThe day ended with dinner at a nearby restaurant called Echo. Before entering, people were posing for pictures:
\n\"DSF3252\"\/<\/p>\n

19_44<\/strong>
\nSince some of the dishes were quite saucy (e.g. goulash), we were issued with stylish bibs:
\n\"DSF3259\"\/<\/p>\n

19_45<\/strong>
\nAfter 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:
\n\"DSF3264\"\/<\/p>\n

19_46<\/strong>
\nThe dancers were impressive:
\n\"DSF3266\"\/<\/p>\n

19_47<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3269\"\/<\/p>\n

19_48<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3270\"\/<\/p>\n

19_49<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3273\"\/<\/p>\n

19_50<\/strong>
\nThen members of the audience were invited to join in, including Jos\u00e9 Antonio, chairman of our budget committee:
\n\"DSF3282\"\/<\/p>\n

19_51<\/strong>
\nAs always on such occasions, Edyta was there too:
\n\"DSF3286\"\/<\/p>\n

19_52<\/strong>
\nMy final picture of the evening, the Tihany Abbey at night:
\n\"DSF3287\"\/<\/p>\n

19_53<\/strong>
\nOur 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 Balatonf\u00fcred. 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:
\n\"DSF3340\"\/<\/p>\n

19_54<\/strong>
\nThere was a nice exhibition of works by Hungarian painter J\u00f3zsef Egry (1883-1951):
\n\"DSF3337\"\/<\/p>\n

19_55<\/strong>
\nAn example of Egry’s works, “Dockworkers”, painted during a tour of Belgium in 1910:
\n\"DSF3328\"\/<\/p>\n

19_56<\/strong>
\nThen it was time to fly home, back to walking Mochi and meeting the neighbourhood cats:
\n\"DSF4379\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4915,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5080"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5080"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5086,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5080\/revisions\/5086"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}