August 7
Left from Kosice Slovakia and drove to Miskolc, Hungary. Immediately, as soon as you crossed the border the scenery changed. Gone were the mountains and rolling hills and in it's place were huge farms, growing sunflowers and grapes.
We made our way to the the famous Miskolc Cave Baths. It was an amazing place. It had 3 pools for kids (the kids pools were not super hot), and it had a hot tub for everybody.
There were 2 long pools that were very cold and they were outside. Inside there was the cave baths. They were long winding paths that went through the rock. The water was just over a meter in depth and the cave was cut out of the rock above our heads. Some of the caves were really high and others were low.
There was a current and my brothers were having the time of their lives and they went in circles for 25 minutes. We could walk though connecting tunnels to other cave baths that were different temperatures. In some places where the water was flowing over the steps and the walls it was depositing rock onto the surfaces making beautiful patterns. You could see it really well in the showers that came out of the rock.
We had a great lunch outside of Lagos – which was a fried bread with cheese and bacon on top. It was delicious. We stayed at the pools for a long time and it was an amazing day.
We drove out of Miskolc and up into the nearby Bukki National Park.
We are staying at a campground in Repashuta. A small little town in the mountains. It is quiet and beautiful here.
August 8
Today we woke up at our campsite in Bukki National Park. We decided to go for a hike in the National Park forest. We saw a local trail to a cave and hiked up to it.
We had just left when we we noticed that the little dog from the campsite was coming to be our tour guide for the hike. We tried to get him to go back, but he really wanted to come with us! Liam named him Fluffy, and Brendan named him Carlos - So he became Fluffy Carlos. Anyway, he was a great hiking pal and tour guide!
We found a trail up to a cave called Balla-Barlang. This area is made of limestone and the caves form easily in the dissolving rock. This cave was spectacular.
It was a huge cave and from what we learned it has been in use as a home for human habitation for over 100,000 years. Remains of spear points and butchered animals were found in the cave.
One of the remains that was found was of a 15 month old child and was C-14 dated at 12,000 yrs. There was a cave bear bone flute found as well as horse, elk and sheep bones found in the cave.
It was so neat to think of the people that lived and had fires so long ago, when there was nothing else around.
Loving Hungary - Off to Budapest Now!!
Tia and Mari
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