On June 13, 2025, the day before we left Austria, we toured Keszthely, next to our condo.
Keszthely is a resort town at the south end of Lake Balaton, two hours from Budapest.
Our guide, Adele, showed us the sights of Keszthely, but the best part of our walking tour was when she took us to visit her mother's house.
As we checked out the church on the town square, Adele's mother happened by. Adele introduced us and mentioned that her mother is a weaver and that her works were on display at the local cultural hall. We asked to stop by the cultural hall to have a look.
We were amazed at the beautiful designs and workmanship of Adele's mother's rugs.
When Adele called her mom to ask about one of the rugs on display, Adele's mother invited us to drop by to see her loom and other rugs which she had created.
Adele's mother introduced us to her partner, who shared a bowl of strawberries which he had picked from his small farm outside the city. They were the sweetest strawberries we had ever eaten. Adele's mother also showed us the beautiful baskets her partner made.
Adele's mother showed us her loom and more of her own artwork.
What a treat!
In the afternoon, we wandered through the baroque Festetics Palace, built by one of the noblemen in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1745.
The greatest treasure of the palace is a library of 90,000 volumes, which miraculously survived the bombings of World War II.
I may have Hungarian relatives. A Scottish duchess, Mary Hamilton, married into the Festetics family in the 1860s. The Hamilton aristocrats of Scotland are reputedly in my family tree.
The dining room was lavish.
The last room of the palace tour was reserved for guests to sit on the chairs, relax, and "feel at home."
Footnote: When I searched the Family Search website for names to take to the LDS temple after I returned home, I received a prompt asking if I wanted to take names for ancestors of fellow ward (parish) members. The site gave me two Hungarian names with the birthplace of Keszthely, Hungary! I told my neighbor, Arden Jones, that, if her relatives were peeking down from Heaven, they would be pleased to know that the woman who had done their sealings had just spent a week at their birthplace!
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