Amazon of Europe Day was celebrated with the Biggest Splash in Hungary on 12th July, with 15 BIG JUMP events and thousands of participants around the country.

The Danube-side settlement of Madocsa won this year’s Big Jump challenge initiated by WWF Hungary. The challenge was to organize the biggest splash in the country to celebrate healthy rivers. In Madosca, more than 300 people ran into the Danube and local pensioner club treated the participants to some traditional Hungarian ’Lángos’. In addition, the day was celebrated with a cycling tour and several sports events.

After winning the challenge, the Living Danube Tour will now come to Madocsa later this year and there will be an excursion to one of the most exciting project sites of WWF Hungary.

While the village of Madosca came out as the overall winner, also all the other participating locations won’t go empty handed: after viewing all Big Jump videos, the WWF Hungary team decided to honour all locations with a creativity award.

Furthermore, the small village of Lulla stuck out of the crowd: Lulla only has 170 inhabitants and their creek Jaba is not big enough to jump in so the participants just walked into it & sang to their beloved little river.

Another solution was found by the village of Patak: Their creek Derék is also too small to jump into it, so the  villagers decided to jump over it!

Kisapostag also put a unique twist on the Amazon of Europe Day & Big Jump: the local folklore ladies choir walked into the Danube in traditional folk skirts, while singing traditional songs and a great number of people followed the brave ladies into the refreshing river.