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Nagybörzsöny, Kóspallag and Márianosztra |
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From Nagy Hideg Hegy, a trail marked by blue squares leads westwards
to NAGYBÖRZSÖNY , 20km north from Szob. Alternatively you can get there
by bus from Szob and make this your starting point for walking east. A
wealthy town during the Middle Ages, Nagybörzsöny declined with the
depletion of its copper, gold and iron mines in the eighteenth century,
and is now a mere logging village with an overdose of churches - four in
all. The walled thirteenth-century Romanesque Church of St Stephen , on
the left as you enter the village, was left stranded as the cemetery
chapel when the village moved closer to the mines in the fifteenth
century. If you are walking from the centre of the village, stop in at
Petofi utca 17 en route to ask for the gigantic church key, as the
church is normally closed. Just across the road from the house is the
Gothic Miners' Church , some of whose features have survived later
alterations; again, if the church is closed, ask at Petofi utca 17. Just
below the church, an exhibition of folk costumes, home furnishings and
mining accessories can be found at the Mining Museum at Petofi utca 19 (Tues-Sun
10am-4pm; 100Ft), with explanations in Hungarian and German only, but
you get the general feel anyway. Just up from the main square, where the
bus terminus is located, you will find the village's still-working
watermill along to the left by the stream (Tues-Sun 10am-4pm; 60Ft). For
accommodation , there are basic doubles (shared bathrooms) above the
Butella Borozó (tel 27/378-035; 3000-5000Ft), just above the main road
near the Romanesque church; or a ten-minute walk along the track past
the wine bar leads down to the Nagybörzsöny Község Vendégháza , by a
fishing lake - a rather out-of-the-way site where you can get a room (tel
27/377-450; 3000-5000Ft). Otherwise it is worth asking in the village
about private rooms.
The other trail from Nagy Hideg Hegy (marked with a blue horizontal line)
runs south down to KÓSPALLAG , another prosaic village, notable only as
a place to catch buses to Vác (six daily; last bus at 3pm). However,
pursuing the path onwards, things improve beyond the Vác-Szob road
junction below the village, where the path wanders through beech woods
to a lovely open meadow graced with a solitary tree and the first view
of the Danube. Cutting southwest across the meadow puts you back on the
path to the Törökmezo Hostel . The path divides by the exercise camp in
the woods, and heading west along the path marked with green signs you
come down to Zebegény (5km). Alternatively you can head on another 4km
along the blue path, past the hostel, to a car park at the junction of
paths to Hegyes-teto (Hilly Peak) and Nagymaros.
If you take the road from Kóspallag to Szob, you come to MÁRIANOSZTRA ,
a place of pilgrimage 9km from Szob and served by hourly buses. These
pilgrimages take place on the second Sunday in May, and on the Sundays
preceding August 15 and September 14. The Baroque church in the centre
of the village (now in the courtyard at the entrance of a men's prison)
dates from 1360, and retains some original fragments. One curiosity is
the copy of the Black Czestochowa Madonna , the original of which was
taken to Poland in 1382 by Hungarian monks sent to found the monastery
there. An hour's walk north from the village takes you to Kopasz hegy (Bald
Hill) which affords some of the best views in the region. |
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