I got an email a little while ago that a Hungarian Fulbrighter wanted to organize a Fulbright caving trip. We want to do everything we can to see Hungary and surrounding countries while we're here, so of course we said yes! One reason this was the best trip ever was that I didn't have to plan a single thing - it was entirely planned by Adam, a Hungarian who spent some time in the US last year. The other group of people met us there and included Adam's wife, a couple of their friends who were also into caving and another former Hungarian Fulbrighter.
We got picked up early on a Saturday by Adam, he had room for all 6 of us in his car! We drove a few hours to Jósvafő. Along the way we stopped for snacks (and a new shirt for J who had already puked by this point - carsickness for the win :-/).
We then drove to Baradla cave (a couple more sick kids along the way), which really looked a lot like caves/caverns we've been to in the US (Carlsbad, Lost World, Laurel). Stalagmites & stalactites & about a hundred other people with us.
After that cave, we checked into our hotel, the Tengerszem Szálló in the tiny village of Jósvafő, which is literally right next to the cave exit we came out of. The caves are part of of Aggtelek National Park. After checking into our hotel we explored the grounds a bit.
We had the top two rooms at the peak - one with 4 beds one with 3.
View from our rooms
The salamander is the symbol for this national park, and we saw a few while we were walking around. One in the water on a log (hard to see) and one on a bridge.
After our outing we hung out in our room (the adults may have fallen asleep)
and the kids read books and played on their ipods.
Then we all drove to dinner at a little tiny restaurant (we must've been the biggest group they'd had in a while). We had some traditional Hungarian/Slovakian foods. J's schnitzel was as big as he was, and he impressed us all by eating most of it.
The next morning we woke up and went to the same restaurant for breakfast (TONS of food). We walked around the village which only took about 15 minutes & fed the horses we saw. They are a Hungarian breed, and common in the part of the country we were in.
Then we went to Rákóczi Cave 1. This cave was much more adventurous. We climbed up & down tons of stairs in there, holding onto the railings of course, because there were lots of drops and two large lakes at the bottom. The kids borrowed head lamps from our traveling companions and they all played with some of the mining equipment at the end. On the way out, we could see Slovakia across the road, but weren't close enough to cross easily by foot, so we didn't. We saw some bats in there too but didn't get any good pics of them.
Group photo since we all survived it!
When it was over, Adam drove us all home and dropped us off. Easiest trip ever for us! We definitely would not have planned all this on our own and having the translators there for us was great! So glad this happened!
