Europe: Togetherness Under Canvas

The scene was stupendous. On a sloping hillside next to shimmering Lake Balaton in western Hungary, acre after acre of multicolored tents stood next to row after row of brightly painted caravans. And above them all, like so many regimental battle flags, pennants fluttered in the summer breeze. Said one slightly awed Western European visitor: “I feel that Charlton Heston should step out of that big blue tent and tell us all to charge.”

The setting was not the location of a film spectacular. Instead, it was the 27th annual rally of the world’s oldest (34 years) and biggest (about 5,000,000 members) camping clubs, the International Federation of Campers and Caravaners (F.I.C.C.). To Lake Balaton and three other nearby sites had come no fewer than 7,000 outdoors enthusiasts from 23 countries.

It was the first F.I.C.C. rally in an Iron Curtain country, and the Hungarians did their best to please. Inside the main camp was a U.S.-style shopping center where Hungarian girls in native peasant dresses hawked rugs, paintings and even antique silverware. A supermarket sold Red Chinese meat loaf, canned Peking duck, Russian tuna fish, Yugoslav salami, Hungarian goulash, and East German herring. The shelves were loaded with just about every variety of East-bloc wine and liquor. Next to the shopping complex a loudspeaker blared Red-tinged news reports alternately in English, French, German and Hungarian (“Seven American planes were shot down over the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam today”). To make the campers feel at home, the Hungarians set up a variety of services and shops ranging from flush toilets to a beauty parlor to a pinball hall, whose name translated from Hungarian came out as “automatic joys room.”

National Enclaves. There was no set entertainment program and few formalities, so that the campers could settle down at once to the delights of international living. The 2,000 French were scattered everywhere. “There are too many of us to be together,” shrugged one French camper. But the 1,600 British, 900 Germans, 900 Italians and hundreds of smaller contingents clustered in tiny national enclaves readily identifiable by the smell of cooking food, the particular blare of the transistor radios and the behavior of inhabitants.

“Camping next to the Germans is like visiting your mother-in-law,” complained one Swede. “All you hear is ‘Do this, do that.’ ” Said a German of nearby British: “You always hear about British reserve. Why don’t you ever see it?” The British, of course, were oblivious to criticism. “I love outdoor living,” enthused one British caravaner. “It helps you understand other people. And it would be even better if those damn Italians weren’t always stopping up the toilets.”