Wheelchair accessible in the Remete Gorge

We start our hike from the modern, accessible parking lot of the Remeteszőlős Municipality. If arriving by bus, the entrance of the gorge is not far, and along the way, we can stop in the park to listen to Örkény’s one-minute stories from a phone booth. There we also find a musical drinking fountain and a book stop. After a short section with firm pavement on the village outskirts, a left turn brings us to the shady atmosphere of the gorge's cool, “air-conditioned” valley. At a square surrounded by information boards, our hiking trail is separated from motor traffic by a barrier (there is a large rock on the arrival side serving this function), beyond which the gorge begins.

The limestone, dry soil is contradicted by the lush, huge healthy forest: oak-hornbeam forests, dogwoods, alder trees along the stream, and in places Hungarian ashes accompany our path. The stunning atmosphere of the landscape reminds us how ideally we imagine a healthy forest based on pictures: a spacious valley, a winding stream beside our path, birdsong, and the bone-white limestone stones peeking out of the composted forest soil…

The slowly trickling stream carved the gorge into the limestone, and the water dissolves the limestone forming smaller and larger caves and hollows. Along the Ördög-árok, we find twenty caves at different heights, as the water sawed its channel lower and lower. Among the most spectacular is the Remete Cave, which we slowly approach on a relatively wide forest path. The cave was named after a true hermit who moved here at the end of the 18th century after the dissolution of the Pauline Order. The cave had been inhabited long before that; archaeological excavations starting in 1914 uncovered traces of ancient humans in the cave. Unfortunately, it cannot be reached by wheelchair, but the widening path offers a good resting place for those wanting to reflect and those seeking silence. Timber benches, fallen and upright tree trunks, and quietly passing mountain bikers enrich the atmosphere.

At our visit, the Ördög-árok was happily babbling in the valley, an intermittent waterflow previously known as Tímár Creek or Kovácsi Creek. The gorge, surrounded by steep rock walls, has a certain magical atmosphere; not by chance, a few hundred years ago this cool, deepening valley was believed to be a meeting place for witches. This preserved ancient forest unit mainly serves as a refuge for birds, insects, and reptiles; here lives the whiskered marten, the wolf spider, and the grass snake too. Altogether, we travel on a well-maintained, clean forest trail near the capital, “so far yet so close.” The recurring stones on the path can be bypassed, and since the trail gently slopes towards Máriaremete, near the end of our hike we come almost level with the stream bed.

A prominent concrete water drainage ditch (crossing only recommended with assistance) and villas of more affluent social layers peeking from behind the trees mark the end of the gorge hike. If arriving by public transport, reach the bus stop via Csatlós and then Ördögárok Street; if the car is left in Remeteszőlős, enjoying this short hike in reverse doubles the special atmosphere of the Remete Gorge.