Bakony, Balaton-Uplands - Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum: Skanzen

Bakony evokes wood covered hills, while Balaton-Uplands recall gentle slopes rising above the glistening water and interesting volcanic shapes planted with grapes and press-houses. Whitewashed, adorned gables, vaulted porches, alongside with colourful stone walls emerging from beneath the crumbling mortar catch the eyes of the visitors in the villages.

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As long as the mountainous regions of historic Zala and Veszprém Counties were covered with unbroken leafy woods, the houses were mainly constructed with wooden and plaster walls. Parallel to the clearing of woods, stone became the most significant material during the 18th century. The walls built from white, yellow and grey limestone, dolomite, red sandstone and black basalt give the villages a peculiar character. Serfs and other workers used quarry stones mixed with mud. The new building material affected the structure and form of houses: through vaults, constructed from flat stones and vaulted cellars were made, which increased the space for wine storage. The roofing and the ceiling of dwellings with black kitchen and three or four rooms were constructed from trimmed hardwood till the mid-19th century.

Sources of living in the Balaton-Uplands were wine and fishing (by the shore). In the Bakony area, it was animal husbandry and forest crafts (carving, lime-burning, potash making) were the most important. The small amount of grain grew on the poor soil, so the population actively bartered with the inhabitants of the flat country. The wines of the area also reached Western-Hungary and Styria.

Due to sieges of fortresses, most of the villages were destroyed in the 16th-17th centuries. In conjunction with this, the population also decreased. In the 18th century the new owners encouraged Hungarian, German and Slovak settlers to come to the area. The ecclesiastical and secular large estates had a dominant position and there were a large number of poorer gentry as well.

During the Turkish occupation most of the people converted to Protestantism, however, at the end of the 18th century, Catholics prevailed thanks to settlers, farm labourers and shepherds. Protestantism was preserved by the descendants of the gentry. Lutherans also lived in the neighbourhood of Kővágóörs.

From the Middle Ages the settlement pattern was characterized by villages built along the road. From the 19th century, due to narrow fields, irregular sites and the system of common yards appeared, while in the new villages regular yards were characteristic. The exhibition unit represents the different kinds of stone architecture with dwellings, public and ecclesiastical buildings. The traditional construction material of the region was wood; in areas lacking wood wattle - and earthen-walled buildings were characteristic even at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The carved oaken sills and the hewn and carved pine log walls were usually plastered with mud and whitewashed. They had thatched roofs although since the middle of the 19th century tiled roofs also appeared.