Cseri Miklós - Horváth Anita - Szabó Zsuzsanna (szerk.): Discover Rural Hungary!, Guide (Szentendre, Hungarian Open Air Museum, 2007)

VIII Bakony, Balaton-Uplands

increased the space for wine storing. The roofs and ceilings of houses with a black kitchen and three or four rooms were made from trimmed hardwood until the mid-19th century. In the Balaton-Uplands the main sources of living were viniculture and fishing whilst in the Bakony it was animal husbandry and forest crafts such as wood carving, lime-burning, and potash making. Only a little grain could be grown on the poor soil, so the population actively traded with the inhabitants of the lowlands. The wines of the area were exported as far as WesternHungary and Styria. Most of the villages were destroyed by the wars and sieges of the l6th-17th centuries and the population declined. During the 18th century the new owners encouraged Hungarian, German and Slovakian settlers. The church had a dominant position and there were large numbers of poorer gentry. During the Turkish occupation most of the people converted to Protestantism. However; at the end of the 18th century, the Catholicism prevailed thanks to settlers, cotters and shepherds. Protestantism was preserved by the descendants of the gentry and there were Lutherans in the Kővágóörs area. From the Middle Ages the settlement pattern was characterised by villages built along the roads, but in the 19th century common yards developed. But as a result of the narrow fields and irregular land holdings, they did not have a uniform pattern. In new villages regular yards were characteristic. The regional unit with its houses, public and ecclesiastical buildings represent the variety of stone architecture.