N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Buda - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
The Remete Ravine
Most underground miracles of Budapest are just as little known to the local inhabitants as they are to the millions of tourists visiting the city every year. The natural cavities formed in the rock foundation of the city have been enlarged and reshaped by people over the years to suit their needs. The network of natural and artificial caves, the beds of what used to be streams ages ago locked now in the embrace of stone vaults, the "balloons" of huge underground reservoirs can all make a lasting impression. In what is to follow the reader is taken on a guided tour of the most important subterranean sights on the Buda side of the city. (The Caves oh Buda by Péter Adamkó, György Dénes and Szabolcs Leél-Őssy in this series introduces the most important larger caves, which will not be revisited here.) We make no secret of our wish that the underground stations of this virtual walk will soon feature as part of the sightseeing tours of the city. The Remete Ravine At the northwestern corner of Budapest’s administrative boundaries, near Máriaremete (today’s Pesthidegkút), a place renowned as a shrine, there is a popular destination of the city’s excursion-makers. Called Remete-szurdok, the place is a ravine that was formed by a brook coursing down Nagy Ördög-árok (Greater Devil’s Ditch) as it broke through out of the Nagykovácsi Basin. Lying within the Buda Landscape Protected Area of the Danube—Ipoly National Park, the ravine, which was sunk in the Triassic limestone called Dachstein rock of Mesozoic origin, is now under special protection. Besides the geological and speleological finds discovered here, the region is famous for its particularly rich flora, which includes more than 500 species. There are 12 natural pot holes known to be sunk in the steep northern wall of the ravine. Despite the fact that the scientific exploration of the caves started as early as the end of the 19th century (Lajos Lóczy, 1877; Ottokár Kadié, 1913; Tivadar Kormos—Kálmán Lambrecht, 1914) and continued in the 20th century (László Vértes, Béla Bálint, Miklós Gábori, Adrien Káldy, Mária Mihalkovszky, 1949, Veronika Csánk Mrs Gábori, 1969), no methodical survey was carried out before the 1970s. What catches the visitor’s eye from the road running from Hűvösvölgy to Nagykovácsi is a large hole in the craggy northern wall of the ravine. Reaching the entrance to the cave at 340 metres above sea level can easily bring out the sweat on the tourist's forehead as the opening is at a height of 5
