The traditional culture of Tihany, which dates back to the Middle Ages, was alive until the 1950s. The typical inhabitants of the village who worked at the fortress and the Abbey were poor people and this fact is reflected in their architecture.
It was not unusual for several small peasant houses to be built on the same site. The houses were built with a ‘smoke kitchen' – the smoke left through a hole in the roof and through the door, there being no chimney – in the middle of the building, a practice replaced in the 19th century with free-chimney kitchens. Next to the kitchen, there was a room on one side and a larder, a barn and a shed on the other. The kitchen was heated by the oven, and the rooms were heated by a tile stove fuelled with coal. The walls were whitewashed wattle and daub, and stone walls of basaltic tuff with its characteristic grey colour. The roof was thatched with reeds. The furniture was made of hardwood and served several generations. Some of the peasant houses with their original furniture can be visited by the tourists (e.g., the Farmhouse and Fishermen’s Guild house along Pisky sétány, as well as the Potter’s house at the end of Batthyány J. utca), while others are still occupied or serve other tourist purposes.
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