Katarína Löfflerová on a summer family trip to Lake Balaton

This picture was taken in Siofok in 1928; we were there on vacation. My mother, Anna Vidor is sitting, my younger sister, Erzsebet (on the right) and me (on the left) are standing behind her. The others were occasional acquaintances. A wandering photographer took the photo, they would often stop the guests of the spa.

Summer vacation was fifty to sixty percent similar everywhere. Families did the same things. There were three kinds of summer vacation. The first was to stay at home. You went to the Danube pool to swim or to the beach, to the Lido. A person bought a season ticket there. The season ticket down on the Danube bank was good for the pools and cabins up top, and the square tents down at the bank - a person, for one season, could rent one of these, and then you stayed there. You took your foldable chair, and lived there. In nice weather, you went there whenever you had the chance. That was one of the forms of vacation, the most common form. The other form was to go for two weeks into the Tatras. By the way, you didn't even go to the High Tatras, just the Low Tatras. For example, we went to Korytnica, I knew the Ruzomberok well. A person went to Ruzomberok, and that was much different than Bratislava. And the third possibility - actually, I should have said it second - because we often went down to Lake Balaton.

I preferred most to go to the Balaton for the summer. It was very pretty, and good, and clean. I have a lot of photos. We really really loved to go to the Balaton. I was there many times, I couldn't say how many. There was a good train connection to the Balaton. You didn't even have to transfer, we could take this train to Boglar or Fonyod. Of course, not to Siofok because it was significantly cheaper to get off in Boglar. The Czechoslovak crown was very strong then. In Czechoslovakia, we lived in a better economic situation, than they did in Hungary then. They called my mother 'her madam szokolos' there, where we stayed - there was always a certain room we rented, which you paid for in hard currency. The Czech koruna was called 'szokol' in Hungary. I don't know of anyone of my parents' acquaintances who might have gone to the seaside for vacation. They went to the Tatras, and also close-by, they would go to Karlsbad for health cures. Those who had lung problems went to Meran. The big trips abroad cost serious money, and weren't usual.