During the Communist period egalitarianism was the ideology if not always the practice, but there was at least an emphasis on access to the countryside for all. In reality, however, international frontiers or areas near military installations were out of bounds. Agreements between the countries of the Warsaw Pact to control the movement of dissidents obliged the Hungarians to patrol the border with fellow socialist Czechoslovakia, and anyone who strayed too close to the frontier was escorted away at gunpoint, or worse. Today the problem for walking access is privatisation. Although Hungarian law obliges private landowners to honour waymarked routes set up before privatisation there have been problems such as landowners building fences without consultation. The main pressure group dealing with walkers’ access issues, the Union of the Hungarian Friends of Nature (MTSZ), was involved in government negotiations with private forest owners, but is powerless in the face of failed negotiations with other landowners.
With a few exceptions the walks described in the guide follow the official waymarked trails to ensure that there are no access problems or disputes with landowners. Apart from the restricted areas mentioned above it is permissible to explore the many unmarked tracks through state forest land and national parks. Hungarian walkers tend to follow waymarks, so this is a good way of seeing the more secretive wildlife such as the moufflon or eagle owl. Respect boundaries whether in the public or private domain: do not climb fences or gates unless there is a ladder provided and it is on a waymarked route. Appendix 2 lists a few warning and no entry signs the walker is likely to encounter. As a general rule stay out of an area with signs saying Tilos! or Figyelem!
Village Facilities
The practical information about accommodation and local public transport should cover the traveller’s needs, but as much of the walking passes through villages it is worth mentioning a few points. A village with a tiny population can be spread along a very long main street – more than a mild inconvenience if you have walked a long way on a hot day. Facilities are often not well centralised, and it can be a long trek to find accommodation, a shop or a bar which is situated, from the exhausted walker’s point of view, at the wrong end of the village. A few tourist-friendly villages have information boards in English and German but they are often poorly designed, badly translated or have faded lettering. With few exceptions village shops tend to close by midday Saturday and do not open again until Monday, although shops in villages geared to tourists open later and on Sundays. Bread runs out early, and goodquality fruit and vegetables are difficult to find because most villagers grow their own. Look out for tables in front of houses laden with garden produce. There is an honesty box for the payment, although it is not often clear how much the householders, who are rarely around, want for a green pepper.
Every village has one or two bars called a kocsma, italbolt, söröző or eszpresszó, which is usually a very basic affair, full of men, and often does not have a women’s toilet, but despite this they are not hostile places for women. When entering a bar it is proper to greet the occupants with the polite address. If you are a man do not be surprised if locals coming into the bar shake everyone’s hand including yours before going up to order a drink. Some villages have a restaurant geared to the tourist trade offering excellent dishes made from locally caught game. Menus often have English and German translations.
Camera film is rarely available in the countryside, but try the post office, where postcards and maps are also on sale. For walking and camping gear Budapest and Miskolc have several shops which stock a variety of camping stove gas canisters and insect repellent (see Appendix 4).
Most villages run an annual fair (búcsú) or folk festival (fsalunapok) which celebrates the wine harvest or the end of winter. The festival may involve a church procession, outdoor concerts, marching bands, and women in regional costume. There are also less traditional music festivals and art days set in pretty regions such as the Káli-medence in the Balaton Uplands or the Zemplén. Check with the local branch of Tourinform for details of any festivals in the area. Many villages have a tiny museum of local life and traditions, or tájház. Unfortunately the museum is often locked, although the curator can be contacted at the address on the fence or in the window. Locals are usually helpful and if they spot a tourist lurking around the museum they will pass the message on to the curator who probably lives in the village. Museums are closed on Mondays.
It is rare to find public conveniences in villages, and the toilet for the bar is probably a very primitive affair such as a shed around the back. Things are set to improve, and cafés often have very good facilities. Toilets in the rail and bus stations of small towns are often in a poor condition and have no toilet paper unless there is an attendant to whom you pay a few forints. Look for the universal WC sign or Mosdó, and if there is no male or female symbol on the WC door Férfi is man and Női woman.
Monkshood on Csóványos, Börzsöny, Walk 4
Flora, Fungi and Fauna
The actions of thermal springs and karst drainage have created today’s landscape of deep wooded valleys, montane beech forest, damp gullies, caves, sink-holes, sun-bleached limestone outcrops, upland meadows and rolling downland, providing habitats for a variety of rare and endangered plants. Hungary’s vegetation zones range from Carpathian in the northern hills to Mediterranean in the south, but there are also pockets of sub-alpine, Illyrian and Boreal species which are relicts from the Ice Age. The basalt crags in the Balaton region provide a micro-climate for the lip fern, a survivor of warmer times, and the open karst and volcanic outcrops harbour several species of stonecrop and saxifrage. In the sinkholes of the Bükk-fennsík plateau temperatures have been recorded well below freezing on a summer night, creating a unique habitat for the aconite, gentian, carline thistle and Austrian dragonshead. Hungary’s position in east-central Europe and touching on the Balkan peninsula encourages forest to grow at high altitudes. Beech, hornbeam and oak are the commonest species, although there are many varieties of fruit trees and bushes specific to Hungary.
There are almost 500 types of mushroom in Hungary, and woodland species of the boletus, russula and inocybe groups are commonly found. In the early nineteenth century the German settlers in the Bakony collected bracket fungus for tinder to light pipes and make hats. Today mushroom-foraging continues to play a small part in village economies.
The relatively undisturbed forests are a haven for wild game such as roe deer, red deer and, less commonly, the moufflon, introduced from Corsica in the 1920s. The wild boar is largely nocturnal, and the walker is more likely to see the upturned turf of its foraging than the animal itself. Red squirrel, pine marten, badger and fox are also present, but the wildcat, which prefers old beech forest, is very shy. Hungary’s hundreds of caves and crevices have attracted speleologists and archaeologists from all over the world, but also provide a good habitat for many species of bat, including the Mediterranean Horseshoe Bat. Lynx and wolf were once extinct, but thanks to a hunting ban since the 1970s have been making a cautious comeback in the Aggtelek and Zemplén. The brown bear is a very rare visitor from Slovakia.
Birdwatchers coming to Hungary tend to concentrate on Hungary’s wetlands and the Great Plain, but the highlands also offer plenty of interest. It is worth taking a pair of 8x40 binoculars to sort out the various species of raptor wheeling over forest meadows. Rare but on the increase, the Saker falcon can be seen on the high Bükk plateau, and the range of the imperial eagle is spreading thanks to conservation efforts. Several species of owl seem to have survived the days when superstitious villagers killed them, and the remoter parts of the northern forests provide a habitat for the eagle owl. North-east Hungary is also at the western limit of the ural owl. There are many species of woodpecker, including the black woodpecker with its unmistakable plaintive call. The rare hazelhen, a woodland-loving member of the grouse family, is also to be found in the north. Orchards, smallholdings, vineyards and downs provide breeding sites for summer visitors such as the golden oriole, wryneck, hoopoe and many species of warbler. Thorny scrub on
