Mezökövesd was my first stop, or rather, my first base-camp, I didn't see much of the city.  It's the biggest village near the Borsodi-Mezöségi Landscape Protection Area, a large region that was once regularly flooded by the Tisza river, but that is now, after the river has been regulated, slowly drying out.

I had never seen such wide open and very flat areas before, it was quite a surprise.  Well, not thát flat: lower parts are almost swamps, higher parts are used for agriculture.  Mostly sun-flowers, a pitiful sight they are when after blooming they just wait until it's time for harvesting.

The more I drove to the North, the less people I saw.  Okay, it was outside the touristic season, but still it's a surprise to find such a beautiful area being visited by only a handful of people.  I guess it's simply not known, if the average tourist is like me I guess one has to discover the area almost by accident.

Visiting the castle of Füzér is quite interesting as the landscape slowly introduces it to you, revealing more and more as you come closer.  One can come up to a few hundred metres of the castle by car, but the last bit has to be done by foot.  And that trip, short as it is, makes you bow your head in humbleness when thinking of the orginal workers who built the castle, carrying all their tools and materials up that same path.

I'm not sure what the restoration is hoping to achieve.  It seems they are rebuilding at least parts of the castle, judging by the difference one can see with pictures from an earlier date.

A few kilometres South-East of Füzér, in a village called Füzérradvány, is a castle in a totally different style, built by the Károlyi family, in a very nice park.

The Tisza river, the second in Hungary, has been "regulated".  This formed a giant wetland with huge reed-fields, swamps, beaches, and islands.  Carefully marked off zones ensure that brooding birds and humans enjoying a day off each can do so without interfering with each other.  In certain parts even motorized water-pleasure is allowed.

Driving in Hungary is an experience.  The quality of the roads is very varied.  The motorways are excellent, they can compete with the best in the world.  Main roads are good to acceptable.  But the smaller ones in rural areas or in the mountains can be quite challenging for your suspension.  But that doesn't stop the Hungarian drivers from ignoring the speed limit, something they do everywhere, even in the smaller villages.  I witnessed a near-accident in a village when a speeding car almost hit a horse-and-carriage coming from the right side - and the car driver had the nerve of honking angrily.

And you can see anything on the road.  A mix of relatively to very new Western European cars and anything one expects in a communist country from the seventies: Trabant, Lada, Skoda, and trucks I had never heard of before.  And the occasional horse-and-carriage, a daily sight during my stay there.  A sight that has totally vanished where I live, too bad since it's quite a charming one.

One of the two most famous wines from Hungary comes from the Tokaj region.  No wonder that every hillside facing somewhat southward is turned into a vineyard.  With the occasional sunflower-field mixed in of course.  When driving into Bodrogkeresztúr, the last village before Tokaj, one can find these statues on the bank of the river Bodrog.

After a little searching in Tarcal, "at the other side of the hill" from Tokaj, one can find the road towards the television tower.  One of the worse ones, but since it's pretty steep and with very narrow curves one doesn't drive too fast anyway.  And the suspension-torture is worth it, the views from up there are stunning.

The Mátra and Bükk mountains form the "ceiling" of Hungary.  Neither are really high -Mátra has peaks between 500 and some 1000 metres above sea-level- but nevertheless the panoramas that suddenly unfold can be breath-taking.

Hidden in the woods above Kazár one can find a rare sight: several hectares of rhyolite tufa right at the surface.  as good as no vegetation on it, only insects buzzing around your head (and the occasional lizard, too quick for my camera), and the sun reflecting on a very white surface.  Almost unearthly.

Deep canyons are eroded in it, it almost looked like a miniature grand canyon, though the erosion is only from rain it seems.

In Szilvásvárad I had this hotel.  Not as spectacular as it looks, but it was a nice park to walk through.  In Szilvásvárad one can take a narrow-gauge train into the Szalajka-völgy park, which follows the first three kilometres of the Szalajka river.  One can take the train back, but just about everyone walks along the river.

Not many people take the path up to the Istállóskö cave since the path there is a) not too well indicated, and b) very steep.  Too bad, they miss a short but demanding walk, and a view into a cave with some archaeological value.

Just walking down the path back to Szilvásvárad one follows the river which grows from a brook into a river alongside the path.  The first landmark is the "veil" (=Fátyol) waterfall, named after the way it covers the rock-layers with its white-foaming water.  And further downstream more waterfalls invite you to spend a few moments longer in their presence.

In the Bükk-mountains, close enough to Miskolc so it can be reached from there by narrow-gauge train, lies the castle of Lillafüred, which is today used as a hotel.  Most people gaze at the castle, or row on the lake right in front, or just have a coffee on one of the terraces.  Very few take a look at the backside, where remains of old fortifications can be found, and a statue of the poet József Attila overlooking a nice green valley.

The Puszta.  The "capital" is Hortobágy, a small village in the center of the Hortobágy Nemzeti Park, the great plain of Hungary where man and nature coexist.  The bridge is the longest stone bridge for vehicles in Hungary.

Lots of people miss the Hortobágy stud farm, just across that bridge, in Máta, which is more than just a stud farm.  The left picture shows an overview as seen from the stables: the larger buildings on the left are restaurants and exhibition halls, the buildings on the right are part of a group of villages for the riders of the horses.  One could in fact say that the farm is a village within the village.  The right picture is an "ordinary" farm, a little east of Hortobágy.

That Puszta is pretty boring, on first sight.  It's flat, and there is nothing to see.  Yet when you drive through it you'll notice small changes all the time, it's not that flat, sometimes the dusty grass becomes green grass, then reed, farms are scattered throughout it, cattle-herds are taken from here to there by their shepherds.  In Hortobágy there is one of those typical swing-pole wells, but spotting one in the middle of nowhere is much nicer.

The third and last basecamp was Debrecen, where I stayed in a hotel in the Nagyerdö park.  From there the city center is a 15 minute walk, and it was only about 10 minutes to the main building of the university.

I did spend more time driving through the countryside though.  Got me some black ceramics from Nádudvar, some from Mezötúr, even the cute Miska kancsók.  And in Gyula I found a great restaurant serving traditional dishes.