In the footsteps of the miracle rabbis in Tokaj-Hegyalja

Itinerary 

• From the railway station towards the city center, start alongside the fence of Iskolakert on Táncsics Mihály Street, then at the end of the street turn right onto Rákóczi Street.
• At Makovecz Square, to view the House of Culture and Library and the statue of the Patak student, upon reaching Eötvös Street turn right, then take the route Comenius Street-Erdélyi János Street-Szent Erzsébet Street to approach the basilica and the castle.
• Return to Rákóczi Street and turn left – from here to Bodrogkeresztúr all you need to do is go straight towards Tokaj. (To visit the Árpád-era church in Bodrogolaszi, take a detour by turning left into Templom Street.)
• Upon reaching Szegi, follow the signs of the Bodrog valley (and EuroVelo 11) bike path and turn off the main road – there is almost no car traffic on these small streets.
• In Bodrogkeresztúr, before viewing the cannonball set in the wall of Dereszla Vinotéka, turn left at the end of the street (still following the bike path signs), then turn right at the junction towards Tokaj near Tarcal – here we leave EV11.
• Upon arriving in Tarcal, at the end of Keresztúri Street turn left onto the main road, then after passing the Coop store turn left at the "Tokaj TV road" sign, which also leads to the Blessing Christ statue. At Könyves Kálmán Street turn right, then where a sign indicates, left onto a narrow small street that continues as a steep promenade leading to the statue.
• From the statue, ride down and at the promenade junction turn left; this path leads to the mining lake. Leaving the lake, follow the dirt road, then at its end turn right to the main road and then left. Follow the asphalt of road 38 to the border of Tokaj where you can join the bike path.
• In Tokaj, at the first opportunity (a narrow street opposite the gas station) turn left, pass under the railway, then turn right at the edge of the vineyards and keep parallel to the railway; passing in front of the Szerelmi wine cellar row, you reach the main road (Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Endre Street) where you turn left.
• The pedestrian and bike path leads to the Tisza bridge; here return to the road and exit the roundabout at the second exit (towards Bodrogkeresztúr), then immediately turn left at the first chance; this street leads straight to the main square.

Detailed description of the route

Memories of Rákóczi and Makovecz

In Sárospatak, getting off the train, in front of the station building you find the Táncvirág fountain (composed of five dancing girls), and right beyond it is the shady park of Iskolakert, where along the promenades you can closely examine statues of our historical greats. Beyond the park stands the institution the town is named after, the Sárospatak Reformed College, one of the country's oldest educational institutions, founded in 1531 by crown guard Péter Perényi as a cornerstone of the Reformed educational system emerging from the waves of the Reformation. Among the many students who studied here were notable politicians, writers, and poets such as Lajos Kossuth, Géza Gárdonyi, and Zsigmond Móricz; notably, 22 students from Patak were among pastors sentenced to forced labor during the Counter-Reformation wave beginning in the early 17th century. The statue of the "Patak student" can be found at our next stop, Makovecz Square, in front of the building of the Comenius faculty of Eszterházy Károly University (named after a famous former Patak teacher). On the other side of the square is the House of Culture and Library, a significant building by Imre Makovecz, ranked among the top ten architectural works of 1983 by the International Union of Architects. The broadly embracing mass forms a courtyard towards the square, in front of which two sculptures of the Miracle Deer and the Sky Capture are on columns (the latter referring to a scene from the Nagyszentmiklós treasure).

Sárospatak and Makovecz’s names are closely linked; the House of Culture is not the first nor the last building he designed in Patak. Renovation projects like the Borostyán Restaurant, the Bodrog Department Store, Árpád Vezér High School, and the apartments in Hild Square are works of the domestic master of organic architecture. Leaving the city center behind, we head towards the castle, but before reaching the fortress, it's worth visiting the Sárospatak basilica (Castle Church). On the site of today’s building, King Andrew I had already built a rotunda (small round church), as Patak was a royal lodging place. The small royal chapel later became a chapel ossuary after a Romanesque-style church was built in its place, and the current three-nave Gothic hall church was completed by 1492. During the Turkish era, the castle was strengthened, and the northern wall of the church became part of the defense, with gunports built into it. In a later exciting period, after the Wesselényi conspiracy, the castle was occupied by a mercenary army. Their leader, Captain Stahrenberg, bricked up all castle gates, cut two large arched gates into the northern and southern walls of the church, and for twelve years – until Thököly liberated the Patak castle – access was only possible through this route. Before and during the Rákóczi War of Independence, depending on fortune in war, the castle changed hands several times between Kuruc and Labanc troops, and in 1708 it hosted the last national assembly of the war, where at the proposal of Francis II Rákóczi, the present accepted the emancipation of serfs who would bear arms for the homeland.

The castle itself – whose name is inseparably linked with the Rákóczi family – consists of two visually distinct parts. The core of the castle (also the oldest part) is the so-called Red Tower, a five-story, massive structure whose lower level walls pierced by gun ports, while higher floors feature windows and projecting balconies. It once housed a kitchen, pantry, chancery, treasury, and archive side by side on the lowest level. To the north connects the diamond-shaped castle building, whose most famous parts are the so-called Lórántffy loggia (a stairway with columns and arches connecting the eastern wing and the tower, named after Zsuzsanna Lórántffy, wife of György I Rákóczi) and the Sub Rosa balcony hiding the room of the same name. Its name comes from the painted vault keystone decorating the circular balcony room with a stylized rose (sub rosa, meaning under the rose). The Renaissance-decorated room hosted secret negotiations of the Wesselényi conspiracy involving Francis II Rákóczi, Ferenc Nádasdy, Péter Zrínyi, and Ferenc Frangepán.

The castle houses many permanent and temporary exhibitions; notably, a display illustrating the life of the Rákóczi family holds a prestigious place. In the Red Tower, you can see the knight's hall, the reception room of György I Rákóczi, and Renaissance door and window frames, as well as a cannonball foundry and kasemates among the sights.

Walloon settlers along the Bodrog

From the above, it becomes clear that much time can be spent in Sárospatak (together with the nearby Megyer Hill crater lake, it definitely makes for a full-day program), but now we continue along the Bodrog valley towards Tokaj. You can cycle almost undisturbed on the low-traffic road over a sometimes surprisingly hilly terrain – a typical feature of the foothills terrain that cyclists must get used to. The first interesting sight may only catch the sharpest eyes: after leaving Bodroghalász, a few hundred meters in, on the left side in the field, is an embankment leading towards the Bodrog. This formation is actually the remains of the Bodrogköz narrow-gauge railway, which miraculously still has its former bridge over the river to admire on a small detour along a poor dirt road. It's quite unbelievable today that this section was once part of one of Hungary's longest narrow-gauge railways, running from Nyíregyháza to Füzérkomló as a main line. The world began opening up in 1924 with the construction of the Hegyköz narrow-gauge railway connecting Sátoraljaújhely and Füzérkomló, linked three years later with the Bodrogköz narrow-gauge railway, and three years after that also with Nyírvidék via the Tisza bridge between Balsa and Kenézlő. At its heyday, the narrow-gauge connected Zemplén with Nyírség, and during WWII, it was even possible to reach Királyhelmec on the network, with a fast motor coach running up to 60 km/h on the Alföld sections. Between Nyíregyháza and Sóstó, the narrow-gauge operated uniquely as an electric tram – tram-trains are not that new in Hungary as the news might suggest. The line of the Pálháza narrow-gauge train, linked to the railway closed in 1980, still operates today where small trains can be ridden.

Soon we arrive in Bodrogolaszi, where the village's Árpád-era church is worth a small detour towards the Bodrog bank. The Holy Trinity Church towers on a small hill near the ferry leading into Bodrogköz, with nearly a thousand years of history and harmonious architectural solutions inviting tourists to stop even from a distance. The Roman Catholic church of Bodrogolaszi is proven to have stood since the late 12th century, mentioned in a charter issued by King Imre in 1201. The earliest known Hungarian hospes privilege was indeed granted by the ruler "for the Patak guest settlers living at the Saint Nicholas church", who were none other than the Italian or Walloon settlers founding the village. (The latter seems more likely despite the village's name, as at the time all neolatin peoples were collectively called "Italian".) Several local settlement names (e.g., Olaszliszka, Tállya) hint at this origin. The hospes settling in Bodrogolaszi built a neatly walled stone church on the Bodrog bank at the end of the 1100s. The shape of Romanesque rural churches is reflected in the balanced building: the semicircular sanctuary connects to a somewhat wider and higher rectangular nave, from the mass of which rises the tower standing on the western wall. The tower is the most ornate part of the building: above the gunports on the first floor, splendid twin-column Romanesque windows open. Inside the gate, you enter a simple, whitewashed church interior, with paintings depicting the Stations of the Cross decorating the walls on both sides. In the 18th-19th centuries, the church lost its original Árpád-era character through various renovations, which was finally restored during the 1978–79 restoration.

Passing through the next village, Vámosújfalu, you can admire an 18th-century stone bridge if you notice you are crossing it. It is only a short jump from here to Olaszliszka, where, after the aforementioned Walloon or Italian settlers, another group—the Hasidic Jews who settled in the area from the 17th-18th centuries—must be mentioned.

The first immigration wave of Jews originally living in Poland dates to the early 18th century, when after the Turks were expelled and following the Rákóczi War of Independence, the area suffered labor shortages—besides peasant laborers, there were few craftsmen and merchants. However, trade connections were provided through Tokaj wine, whose kosher products were eagerly consumed by the populous Jewish communities of Kraków, Lviv, Warsaw, and Lublin. Following Poland's partitions at the end of the 18th century, migration became even easier as Galicia became part of the Habsburg Empire. The increasingly numerous Jewish community's distinctiveness lay in that most followed the deeply religious Hasidic movement.

In Hasidic communities, rabbis were called tzadik or rebbe, and many were held in religious reverence, almost saint-like in their lifetime. Devoted followers came even from far away—and often Christians also visited them. Allegedly, Moses Teitelbaum of Sátoraljaújhely even healed the young Lajos Kossuth. Though the flourishing Jewish communities can only be traced today through Israelite cemeteries, synagogues repurposed or in ruins, and memorials.

One should arrive with a stone

At the site of the Olaszliszka synagogue today stand two memorial walls as a sad memento. The Jewish communities living along the Bodrog were deported in spring 1944, most never returning. The Olaszliszka synagogue was left ownerless, slowly decaying over the ensuing decades; only the eastern wall remains where the Torah ark's location can still be recognized. The ruins became a Holocaust memorial in 2016, with the construction of a wall very similar to the former synagogue's western facade. The street front shows a settlement map reminiscent of a Star of David, while its inner side features 63 perforated candle holders bearing the names of families who lived there. The remembrance becomes especially intimate when in the evening lights accumulate in the walkway from the gate to the building and on the former floor, recalling the star alignment of April 13, 1944—the day the Jews of Olaszliszka were deported. If possible, one should arrive at the memorial with a stone or pebble in their pocket, symbolizing the soul’s immortality according to Jewish tradition.

Directly next to the former synagogue is the Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whose distinctive tower (and its quite vivid yellow color) stands out from afar. This is no surprise as it was uniquely built in our country as a military watchtower, originally in the Gothic style, just like the church itself, which had a generally accepted form language upon its construction in the 14th century. The building has undergone several modifications since, but its pointed arch entrance at the tower's base still preserves the original stylistic features.

Continuing through Szegilong and Szegi, we reach Bodrogkisfalud, then Bodrogkeresztúr. Bodrogkeresztúr is famous for a miracle rabbi who once lived here; the house and grave of Reb Sájele are significant pilgrimage sites. On the anniversary of his death, 10-15,000 Hasidic Jews may visit this otherwise thousand-inhabitant village, most of whom come from abroad.

Here in Bodrogkeresztúr, we get the first real opportunity to get close to the Bodrog River because anyone can rent rowing boats equipped with benches, sun canopies, and refrigerators at the Kalóz Harbor. Cruising at a comfortable pace with motor-driven boats is a pleasant pastime on the river, even with a large group. Relaxation can also be found at local wineries, among which the Dereszla Winery displays a special memorial to the 1848-49 War of Independence: a cannonball lodged in the facade surrounded by concentric circles painted in national colors, called cockades.

Rio in Tokaj-Hegyalja

Leaving Bodrogkeresztúr, you have to climb a small hill, then after a pleasant descent reach Tarcal. Of course, here we find a synagogue (not in the best condition) and a Roman Catholic church originally built in Gothic style in the 15th century (though today it mostly shows Baroque features). While the village is known for the Degenfeld Castle and the Andrássy Manor, its most unique sight is the huge Blessing Christ statue standing on the hill above. The 8.5-meter-high, 50-ton statue was consecrated in 2015 by the archbishop of Eger. It's worth climbing the promenade to the statue, as a magnificent panoramic view can be enjoyed at the feet of the colossus. From the foot of the hill above Tarcal, you can see as far as Tiszaújváros, with the Zemplén rising gently to the north while the Kopasz (or Tokaj) Hill closes the eastern horizon. Only a few steps from the statue is the edge of the mining pit carved into the hill (surface mining of volcanic andesite took place here), from where you can glance into the shimmering turquoise water surface of the mining lake below. It is possible to descend via the walking path to the lake, then continue from there towards our last stop, Tokaj.

A busy road 38 leads between Tarcal and Tokaj, and so far no bike path has been built between the two settlements. However, looking at the map, there are vineyard paths parallel to the main road on the foothills, and on the other side of the railway, where it is perhaps worth trying if you want to avoid busier traffic sections. Upon arriving in Tokaj, immediately turn left at the first street, then roll along in front of the Szerelmi cellar row, built in honor of the millennial anniversary of the Hungarian conquest. Naturally, tasting is also possible; one can stop at some cellars for a glass of wine or refresh with a spritzer in the spring-summer heat.

The Tokaj wine region gained its deserved fame in the 15th century, not least because the previously best-rated Szerém lands fell under Turkish rule. The region stretches 87 km long and 3-4 km wide in a triangle between Abaújszántó’s and Sátoraljaújhely’s Sátor Hill and Tokaj’s Kopasz Hill, encompassing 27 settlements. The fundamentally volcanic base rock (andesite, rhyolite, and their tuffs) favors the production of full-bodied wines with strong mineral notes, though there are loessier soil sections (e.g., Kopasz Hill) that result in wines with softer character and lower acidity. Typical varieties are Furmint, Hárslevelű, and Yellow Muscat, and among the wines made from them, Aszú and Szamorodni are clearly associated with the region. Regular annual Aszú formation (noble rot) is thanks to a mold species and the local microclimate (though this fungus is also found in other wine regions). The start of Aszú production dates back to the 16th century (probably brought by Szerém winemakers) and quickly made the region famous across Europe. King Louis XIV of France allegedly tasted it and is linked to the term "wine of kings, king of wines." Aszú (and Szamorodni) production remains important in the region today, but it’s worth tasting other Tokaj wines too.

You can continue rolling along the main road from the cellars towards the historic city center, but it’s worth observing the confluence of the Tisza and Bodrog rivers from the Tisza Bridge—one can see why the Tisza is called "blonde." Reaching the center, cycling on atmospheric streets towards the main square, more and more hospitality venues entice entry, so no one should leave hungry or thirsty. On the square, the Bacchus fountain and the Neo-Romanesque Jesus Heart Church welcome tourists, with a Greek Catholic church and a synagogue now operating as a cultural center not far away. Even if miracle rabbis are no longer encountered on this roughly 50-kilometer-long route, the many smaller and larger wonders definitely make a journey through Tokaj-Hegyalja worthwhile.