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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 [mountains]. 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 the Balaton [Lake].
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 [Balaton lakeside villages]. Of course, not to Siofok because it was significantly cheaper to get off in Boglar. The Czech [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 [16] for health cures. Those who had lung problems went to Meran [Merano, Italy, a resort town in South Tirol, visited as a climatic health resort for its mild, temperate climate. The cool surrounding area served as a summer resort.] The big trips abroad cost serious money, and weren’t usual.
I don’t know the exact date that I sat on a train in my life, I only remember where we were going. My father’s only female cousin lived in Velky Meder, she had two daughters of her own. I was still in elementary school when we took a trip down there. I’d like to tell you one funny thing about automobiles.
This happened once, and it’s characteristic of the time. Men usually came home from work for lunch. I was a student up in Palisady [a district of Bratislava], and I lived quite far from there. They told me at home, that I had to cross the middle of town – Michalska Street, the main square, and the section in front of the theater – to come home.
Once they cancelled a class, so I started on my way home a bit earlier than usual. Of course, because they had forbidden it, I went by way of Market Square, around the place where Manderlak stands today, and I came upon my father, who had just left the bank to have lunch.
He stopped and I nearly sunk into the ground with shame that we met here. Then my father said, ‘You know that I don’t like you to come this way, but you don’t know how dangerous it is. Last week, I saw an automobile come by here.
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 [mountains]. 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 the Balaton [Lake].
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 [Balaton lakeside villages]. Of course, not to Siofok because it was significantly cheaper to get off in Boglar. The Czech [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 [16] for health cures. Those who had lung problems went to Meran [Merano, Italy, a resort town in South Tirol, visited as a climatic health resort for its mild, temperate climate. The cool surrounding area served as a summer resort.] The big trips abroad cost serious money, and weren’t usual.
I don’t know the exact date that I sat on a train in my life, I only remember where we were going. My father’s only female cousin lived in Velky Meder, she had two daughters of her own. I was still in elementary school when we took a trip down there. I’d like to tell you one funny thing about automobiles.
This happened once, and it’s characteristic of the time. Men usually came home from work for lunch. I was a student up in Palisady [a district of Bratislava], and I lived quite far from there. They told me at home, that I had to cross the middle of town – Michalska Street, the main square, and the section in front of the theater – to come home.
Once they cancelled a class, so I started on my way home a bit earlier than usual. Of course, because they had forbidden it, I went by way of Market Square, around the place where Manderlak stands today, and I came upon my father, who had just left the bank to have lunch.
He stopped and I nearly sunk into the ground with shame that we met here. Then my father said, ‘You know that I don’t like you to come this way, but you don’t know how dangerous it is. Last week, I saw an automobile come by here.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Katarina Löfflerova