From castle to castle in the northeastern tip of the Mátra

Itinerary

• The route starts with conquering the castle: cycle straight up the road leading to the castle gate.
• After visiting the castle, roll down through the parking lot onto the road leading to the village (turn right at the cemetery, then left at the next fork).
• At Petőfi Street, turn left, then at the next intersection turn right onto Route 24, towards Gyöngyös/Recsk.
• After leaving the last houses of the village, immediately turn right onto a wide dirt road which you must follow to the end, except for a small detour. (The small detour is through a younger forest section; turning right leads to a bare hilltop with a nice view.)
• The wide cart road merges into an even wider dozer road – here turn left and follow this road all the way to the main Route 24. Turn right here and proceed on the asphalt to the second bigger fork, where turn left (a sign indicates the Recski National Memorial Site before this). This road joins the road leading to the memorial site about 3 kilometers ahead; turn left here. (A sign will warn you on the gravel road leading to the memorial site; turn right there.)
• From the memorial site, head straight back on the asphalt road to the village, then turn left at the end of the road, and at the railway crossing turn right onto Route 24. Follow the main road to the Szajla junction, then turn left.
• The road leads to Lake Búzásvölgy, where turn left and continue along the lakeside road. After passing the northern tip of the lake, turn left at the intersection and follow the wide forestry road northwards. This road leads toward Szajla, but at one point you must sharply turn right at a fork onto a less traveled road.
• Upon reaching the outermost houses of Szajla, turn right then follow the route along Béke Street-Kossuth Lajos Street-Alkotmány Street-Fenyves Street. Upon reaching the bike path, turn right, then at the wide dirt road crossing the field turn right again. From here to Sirok, follow a dirt road running parallel—sometimes more, sometimes less passable—to the Tarna River, generally in a straight direction. (Having a map here is recommended for safety.)
• Upon reaching Sirok, cross the Tarna River on the first bridge, then cycle along Darnói Street to Petőfi Street and turn right. At the next opportunity, turn left—you'll reach the castle parking lot via a street already known from the beginning of the ride.

Detailed description of the route

The history of Sirok, located along the Tarna River, is linked to its towering castle. After the conquest, the local lords, members of the Aba clan, already built some sort of a primitive fortress on the hilltop. The castle itself was started by the Bodon family after the Tatar invasion and gained real significance during the Turkish times. The fall of Buda and Hatvan to the Turks, the first siege of Eger Castle, and the fact that the village was paying taxes to the Turks around 1550 were serious warning signs, leading to the fortification of the castle in the 1550s. Sirok became a front-line castle as the area was a constant battlefield between the Ottoman-occupied lands and Royal Hungary. The 1596 capture of Eger Castle sealed the fate of Sirok’s fortress: the garrison, led by the constables, abandoned the castle upon hearing the approaching Turks, not seeing the point in fighting outnumbered. The Turks further strengthened the walls but probably surrendered the castle without a fight in 1687, whose fate was sealed after the Rákóczi War of Independence—like many similar fortresses, it was blown up.

Castle, friend and nun

Still, it is worth climbing up to the castle, so we start our trip this way, warming up on the steep road to the foot of the white walls. The blown-up, ruined castle has been partially restored: the castle walls, bastions, drawbridge gate, castle courtyard, and the stairway leading to the upper castle have all been renewed. In the reconstructed former stable, you can admire interiors recalling the Turkish times and various archaeological finds reflecting the final castle period. Exploring the former passages and corridors beneath the walls is even more exciting, not to mention the breathtaking view.

After conquering the castle, on the way down it is worth taking a glance at the Barát (Friend) and Apáca (Nun) rocks a bit further away. According to local folklore, these rhyolitic tuff rock formations are none other than a loving friend and nun who turned to stone. Not far from here is the Törökasztal (Turkish Table), a flat rock with mysterious hand-shaped indentations carved into its ground-down tip, which some assume was a pagan sacrifice altar and which the Turks later used to watch the area.

Rolling down to the village, it's hard to imagine today that it was once a customs collection point. The peaceful Palóc village never had significant industrial activities, so the 1951 establishment of the "Tubus és Kupak Gyár" (Tube and Cap Factory) was a major turnaround for the settlement. Thanks to the later-named "Mátravidéki Fémművek" factory, a residential area was built, utility infrastructure started, cultural house, kindergarten, nursery, restaurant, and sports facilities were built, and the school building was expanded with a new wing. Thus, parts of Sirok assumed quite urban characteristics. However, this only applied to parts of the small town; for example, those living in cave dwellings did not necessarily see the emerging new world in a rosy light. These poor dwellings are now uninhabited, but anyone can stay in the apartments established there.

Leaving Sirok towards Recsk on Route 24, immediately after the last houses, we turn right onto a wide forest management road, starting a longer, mostly uneventful climb—but at least we are no longer on asphalt. At the K+ mark, it is worth taking a short detour to Nyírjes-láp (Nyírjes swamp) from one of the dozer road’s bends. This is a peat bog formed in a non-draining basin created on rhyolitic tuff bedrock on the northern side of Darnó Hill, home to various sphagnum moss species and willow swamp habitats.

We continue climbing on the wide, well-traveled dozer road toward the top of Darnó Hill, which has a peak at 355 meters with a great northern view, so we make a detour here. It's not very high, but still a hilltop, and from there we can enjoy a not too technical but lively descent to the end of the forestry road, which we continue on a wide, gravel dozer road after turning left, all the way to the main Route 24. Here we have to leave the terrain behind for a while and approach the Recski National Memorial Park on asphalt.

From labor camp to lakeside

"I had no hope of anything anymore in Recsk. But not only me, but a significant part of the camp inmates had no hope. You couldn't have hope when they told you several times a day that you'd die here..." These are the words of Kápráti Kamil, a poet, essayist, and editor, who was imprisoned between 1949 and 1956 at Kistarcsa, Márianosztra, Vác, and Recsk after being convicted of armed conspiracy. The small exhibition set up in the memorial park displays many memories written by those held captive here, forced to work in the quarry, often cruelly tortured—mostly probably innocent—people. Walking through the reconstructed barrack building, you can get an impression of the conditions under which prisoners lived in the camp operating only for three years (1950-1953), which since then has become the most notorious labor camp, known as the "Hungarian Gulag." Around 1,500 political prisoners could have been held in this camp surrounded by a three-meter high double wire fence, where many of the prisoners working in the stone quarry died from exhaustion or illness. Few attempted to escape, and even fewer (only two) succeeded.

From this place commemorating a dark chapter in Hungarian history, we roll on peaceful roads towards Recsk. Arriving at the railway station (scheduled services have not operated here for over a decade), we pass the cultural house, in the yard of which mining machines show that the building originally built as the Miners' Cultural Home also commemorates the precious metal mining in Recsk. There are multiple options for food and drink in the village; it is worth taking a short break here before the remaining kilometers if needed.

From here, we turn towards the nearby Lake Búzásvölgyi by leaving Route 24. The lake, with a water surface area of 54 hectares, is 2.5 kilometers long and was created in 1972 with the help of a valley-dam; it is apparently mostly popular among anglers (common carp, grass carp, and catfish are found here among others), with a total of 140 fishing spots on the two banks. The dirt road by the lake allows energetic progress, but it is worth slowing down occasionally and taking a look at the peaceful water surface. After reaching the tip of the dam, we turn left and continue on the well-traveled road that goes almost all the way, except for a sharp right turn at one point onto a much less traveled but still two-track road. On this stretch, we possibly have the greatest chance to encounter some wildlife.

As we approach Szajla, the road becomes clearer, and upon reaching the outermost houses, we pedal further on asphalt. Kun mounds were found at the village boundary, and local legend says that the Hun king is buried under Attila Hill. If this were true, we would certainly know about it, just as a Bronze Age urn cemetery belonging to the Pilinyi culture has been unearthed in the area. Leaving the village on the bike path leading through the fields towards Terpes, which probably once saw better days, we then turn right onto a dirt road about halfway between the two villages, which runs more or less parallel to the Tarna River towards neighboring Sirok. (The watercourse, which is 105 kilometers long, is a tributary of the Zagyva River, into which it flows near Jászjákóhalma.) The dirt road we follow to Sirok is mostly well passable, but there are surprising parts on this section, such as where reeds or rushes from both sides brush against passers-by—but these parts give the route its uniqueness. Approaching Sirok, the castle appears on the far side of the Tarna, signaling that the destination is near.