Experience hike behind Somoskő Castle

Itinerary:

• From the center of Somoskő, or from the parking lot below the castle, we hike up to the castle (Z trail).
• On the far side of the castle, we descend to the stream on the Z trail, passing the basalt organ pipes and the rock sea along the way.
• At the junction by the stream, we switch to the S trail and cross the stream.
• After a small climb, we follow the S trail along a level path up to the currently unfortunately non-operational first lookout.
• After the lookout, we proceed straight at the junction on the S trail, but after a few steps, the educational trail's S marking turns right into the Macskalyuki mine.
• At the fork at the beginning of the mine, we go straight to explore the mine courtyard with the help of the educational trail signs, then returning here and taking the other, unmarked path, we climb out to the lookout above the mine.
• Returning along the same path from the lookout, then walking back a little toward the first lookout, we turn right on the S trail and descend down the steep path toward the parking lot above Sátorosbánya.
• At the end of the path, turning right at the stream, after about 100 meters we arrive at the parking lot. Here we find a playground, an information point, and a buffet.
• Turning left on the Z trail, following the stream and passing the beautiful Krúdy spring, we return to the castle and continue to Somoskő.

Detailed description of the route:

Somoskő Castle and the world-famous basalt organ pipes

From the village center and the parking lot below the castle, we climb up on the Z trail to what is perhaps the most beautiful castle in Nógrád county, which is already located beyond the border and can be visited for a modest admission fee. The view is impressive: Somoskő Castle is built on a volcanic vent shaped by selective erosion at the surface. It is truly special that the volcanic crater, formed from softer rocks during the volcanic breccia phase, became exposed following erosion, revealing the lava that intruded and remained stuck in the vent. From this surprisingly well-preserved castle by Hungarian standards, there is a beautiful view of the Medves Plateau, Salgó Castle, and further north, the route of our scenic circular hike along the wooded valley of the Sátormegi stream (Bukovinský potok).

From a historical perspective, Somoskő has symbolic significance, as while the settlement lies in Hungary, the castle is located in Slovakia. Only recently has it become possible to hike up from the village to the impressive ruins. Somoskőújfalu and Somoskő belong to Hungary; the 'return' following the Treaty of Trianon is naturally related to local mining. Dr. Géza Krepuska, a renowned ear specialist of his time, owned properties here, and it was he who convinced a key British member of the Czechoslovak-Hungarian border delineation committee, who was suffering from a severe ear disease, to visit the two ethnically Hungarian villages. Consequently, the basalt and coal mining rights in the area, including the neighboring Macskalyuki quarry, were left to Hungarian owners, who could use and develop them until World War II and could import the dark gray cobblestones duty-free to Budapest.

We continue our hike on the castle's far side along the Z trail. It is worth seeing how the walls were built onto the basalt columns behind the castle; a few steps further down, there is a viewpoint overlooking the stream valley again. The main attraction of the mountain, however, is just a few steps away: the famous (and among geologists world-renowned) basalt flow, which even appears in secondary school geography books, can be seen a little further down with a few bends. Here we can admire the five- and six-sided slender basalt columns that sometimes reach up to 9 meters in height, cascading like a 'basalt waterfall' down the side of the castle hill. Basalt is an eruptive volcanic rock formed during the relatively rapid cooling of fluid, low-silica lava. These special columns formed in a 4-million-year-old volcanic crater from the slow cooling of the lava beneath the surface, causing the basalt to shrink into such regular shapes. The revealing of this rare geological formation is thanks to the quarrying of raw materials for the castle's construction.

A few steps further down, we find another spectacle, an extensive rock sea, which can be admired from a built viewing platform. The Nógrád-Gömör basalt region, rich in natural and cultural sights, and the Novohrad–Nógrád cross-border Geopark that highlights the unique geological and surface features of the area contain more than one hundred independent basalt cones, basalt covers, fissure, and vent fillings, most of which are located on what is today Slovak territory. Around nearly every basalt outcrop, lava flow, and lava cover, there is a thin to thick layer of clayey-stony slope debris. Where the water has washed away the clay and soil layers between the rocks, spectacular rock seas and rock flows have formed, similar to those here before us. The rock sea was largely formed naturally during the Ice Age, but to a lesser extent also contains debris from the castle's construction.

Following the cobblestone trail in the Macskalyuki mine

We continue descending on a path lined with large trees toward the stream (partly because this forest remained mostly untouched as it was formerly along a border zone). Beneath our feet, the steps are made up of fragments of basalt organ pipes. Along the way, beneath a giant beech tree, the base rock of the mountain is revealed: sandstone. Basalt erupted over marine sediments in varying thicknesses during later geological periods.

Although we can head either way from the stream, it is better to first visit the famous quarry. Crossing the stream on the S trail and following a short climb, we join a remarkably level path. From the way the path was built, it is easy to deduce that at the time, an 8.8 km narrow-gauge railway transported stone from the famous Macskalyuki mine to the processing plant in Somoskő, and there was even a customs house here at the border, the ruins of which are still visible beside the path. We walk longer along the former railway track, passing a spectacular layered spring, and just before the mine, we encounter the red trail. Although we do not turn onto it, from the junction on the left side, the lookout about 50 meters away can already be seen. From this lookout, one of the best panoramas in the area awaits us: the two castles are visible behind each other. Unfortunately, the structure has become unsafe; the ladder to the top was sawed off, so it is currently not visitable. Returning to the path, we continue straight for a few hundred meters (meanwhile, the S trail branches off to the left – this is where we will continue after following the mine), then turn right into the mine yard.

Entering the mine, the path soon forks: turning left, we explore the mine with the help of educational trail signs; the right (unmarked) path climbs out of the mine yard and continues along the left edge of the mine, reaching the other lookout, from which we will return the same way.

Let's first examine the mine yard! While fewer may have heard about the basalt, probably everyone knows the cobblestones. These are the romantic stones of old towns, black and white stones representing urban atmospheres, as well as photos depicting revolutions. We rattled across them for decades... This stone was the 'gold' of the Nógrád-Gömör basalt region, and the Macskalyuki mine was the largest among the Medves mines. Basalt came into the spotlight in the first half of the 19th century during the great era of railroad and road construction as an excellently split, evenly abrasive, yet very strong rock that exploded into the then construction industry. Thus, the Medves Plateau, Central Europe's largest basalt plateau, became the center of domestic basalt mining, where around 20 mines operated simultaneously during the peak period. The importance of basalt mining in Medves is well shown by the fact that not only streets in cities of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were built from basalt from here, but the stone reached as far as Paris and London.

The Macskalyuki mine is located on the edge of the Medves Plateau, formed by basalt lava flows of a 2-3 million-year-old, intermittently active basalt volcano. It is hard to imagine today in the forested mine yard, but in its 'golden age' during the 1920s and 1930s, it employed 1500 (!) people (by comparison, in 1940, after the peak of mining, about 500 workers worked collectively in 5-7 mines in Hungary). Such a number of people required carefully planned infrastructure, not to mention that the contemporary transport conditions did not allow workers to commute daily (they worked in rotating shifts of ten days). This led to the creation of a miner settlement of 48 residential units (with 1, 2, or 6 apartments), night accommodations, offices, shops, and even a school, the ruins of which can still be seen today in the overgrown abandoned mine yard.

It is worth sitting down a bit in the now quiet mine yard to recall memories of old times. The stone blocks were first detached from the wall by hand using wedges and later by blasting. At this time, the famous stone carvers, the ritzers, came, who were highly skilled craftsmen because the blocks were not smashed with big hammers but split along the right places based on sound. The ritzers sorted out the blocks suitable for carving and paving stones and split the basalt into various sizes in the so-called ritzer stands (covered workstations). Pieces unsuitable for paving stones were taken to the crusher and sold as crushed stone. A narrow-gauge railway was built to serve the mine toward Eresztvény and the crushing and railway station in Somoskőújfalu. Consider the production volume, as 4 steam locomotives and about 80 wagons transported the stone here. Finally, but not least, note that contrary to popular belief, cobblestones did not get their name from the Macskalyuki mine; the name derives from the German language as a literal translation since in foreign languages, including German, the 'cat' prefix is often used somewhat mockingly or in a diminutive sense.

It is also worth climbing up to the lookout: besides the unforgettable landscape view of the two famous castles side by side, we have a beautiful view of Sátorosbánya, the 660-meter-high massif of Sátoros towering above it, and the Karancs as well.

Returning to the previously mentioned fork of the S trail, we descend on a steep path to the parking lot above Sátorosbánya, where we find a playground and a mobile buffet. From the parking lot, following the Z trail along the stream, we return to the now familiar junction, from which we climb back up to the castle and Somoskő on the Z trail. Along the way, it is worth observing the alder trees lining the stream and stopping at the particularly atmospheric and abundant-flow Krúdy spring.