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The town has two marinas, a string of carbonated mineral water springs, beautiful listed buildings from the middle of the 18th and the 19th centuries and fine restaurants. It has modern hotels and guest-houses to accommodate about fifty thousand visitors in the summer.
People come here to enjoy the mild micro-climate, beautiful scenery, famous local wine, sailing and swimming facilities as well as to revive two-centuries old tradition in socialising around spas, bathing and vacationing. The main events of the two month long holiday season include a ball for first-time visitors with a beauty contest and a wine-tasting festivity, both in August.
Balatonfüred has a number of conference halls, a large clinic for heart-patients, a camping site on the lakeshore. It also has a number of wine cellars that sell white house wine in the vineyards on the hillside overlooking the town and the lake.
In winter the lake may freeze over for weeks so that skaters and ice boating take over.
With its 429 beds the State Hospital for Cardiology in Balatonfüred boasts with the largest cardiac-rehabilitation center in Hungary. The hospital is built on the lakeshore and is flanked by the Tagore promenade (see picture on the right) , named after Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel prize laurate Indian poet who was treated here. Many other famous and common patients come here to heal and recuperate round the year thanks to the CO2-springs and baths available, one of the best known healing factors in Balatonfüred. The Kossuth-spring and other springs near the hospital deliver water with free and bound C02 containing iron, magnesium, potassium, hydrocarbonate , calcium, sodium, sulphur and other minerals. The temperature of the spring waters is 14 to 15 °C, they are collected into a big basin and conducted to the spa-building. Then the C02- water is warmed up to 32 to 34 °C and used for treatment.