Nemes János: Healing Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)

Walks in Buda

only four kilometres long; it is very steep, though: it ascends 315 metres. From its other terminal, it takes a couple of minutes only to reach the Széchenyi lookout tower. Ördögorom (Devil’s Summit) is near its Southern slope in a pretty rocky valley (Number 8 bus), Tündérszikla (Fairy Rock) is a huge cliff near the Northern slope. Budapest’s highest hill, János-hegy can be reached by the two-seater chair lift (Libegő). (Its lower terminal is on Zugligeti út.) The whole of Budapest and the surrounding area within a fifty-sixty kilometres radius can be seen and, in fact, in clear weather the peaks of the Slovakian mountains, the High Tatra can be even seen-they are two hundred kilometres away.

If you walk from the János-hegy terminal of the chair lift not towards the tower but the opposite direction, you get to Normafa (a great skiing and tobogganing place in the winter), and not far from the bottom terminal, you can walk to Disznófő spring.

The twelve kilometre long narrow-gauge Children’s Railway connects the most beautiful parts of these hills. One of the terminals is in Hűvösvölgy (Chilly Valley), the most popular excursion place in the capital besides Nagyrét (Big Pasture), which is not far away. Built in 1948, the railway was originally maintained by children only. The points “men”, the cashiers and ticket- inspectors were young communists and even the trains were driven by serious ten to twelve year olds (with adult help, of course).

It is worth paying a visit to the caves of Buda. Pál-völ- gyi Cave was discovered at the beginning of the century by a little boy who was playing there. This is the longest cave in the Buda Hills. The seven kilometre section which can be visited in everyday clothes, has been open, on and off to the public since 1919. Visitors marvel at the hemispherical niches, the hydrothermal minerals and the beautiful fossils in the lime walls, all typical of the Buda Hills. Cavers gave creative names to the dripstones of the cave. Its “Zoo” has a turtle, a crocodile and even a herd of elephants. And in Fairyland, Snow White, the Seven Dwarves, Little Red Riding Hood, the Seven Seas with a Chinese Pagoda on the opposite side await us. Elderly people are recommended not to take the steep stairs leading to some of the side-chambers.

53