Badacsony

Badacsony – The Monarch of Balaton’s Hills

Badacsony is the monarch among the hills along the shores of Lake Balaton. It truly deserves this name, for it is not only the largest and most beautiful, but also the most famous of all. Its fame reaches far beyond Hungary’s borders—wherever people know and enjoy the sparkling, fiery nectar known as “Badacsony wine.”

Everything we consider beautiful in nature can be found, wonderfully united, around Badacsony. Here we get a taste of the sea, proud and majestic mountains, crumbling ancient castles, and sunlit, song-filled southern vineyard slopes. According to legend, giants once played here with blocks, cones, and hills—until, at some sudden command, they withdrew, leaving behind their toys in whimsical disarray.

Among this magnificent landscape, Badacsony rises as the tallest, best-known, and most valuable of all.

Its slopes start right at the lakeshore—at first gently and dreamily—then gradually becoming steeper and continuing into basalt cliffs, wind-carved columns, and stone outcrops. The bays of Badacsonytomaj and Szigliget respectfully embrace it. Standing on the pedestal of a peninsula, Badacsony proudly gazes over the lake, and the lake glimmers back at it with its wave-like eyes.

As one admirer put it, Badacsony rises above the surface of the lake like the “Basalt-Crowned King of Balaton.”