Aggtelek National Park, Hungary (Aggtelek Nationalpark, Ungarn) (Aggteleki Nemzeti Park, Magyarország) 09.2011.

In Jósvafő, an iconic village of the Aggtelek National Park, I have only spent about an hour. I walked up to a small lake called Tengerszem, because one of my favourite places for finding interesting arthropod species is there. There are big stones everywhere in a small valley up the lake. Turning each stone results in finding many rare spiders, harvestmen and other animals. From here I cycled to the train station near Perkupa. The terrain is nicely descending on this part of the road.

Kelemér, Hungary (Kelemér, Ungarn) (Kelemér, Magyarország) 09.2011.

In the middle of September I went on a cycling tour to the Aggtelek National Park in north-eastern Hungary. I took all my photography equipment with me, because I wanted to take some pictures in the unique peat bogs of Kelemér and at a little lake in Jósvafő. I started my tour in the town of Putnok and cycled up towards the peat bog. There are two such bogs close to each other near the village called Kelemér, and both of them are strictly protected. There are very few peat bogs in Hungary and these are the easternmost ones. The bogs are hidden in a dense forest and inside them so many trees (Downy Birches, willows, poplars) are growing that it is quite easy to walk past them without even noticing them. That is probably one of the reasons that these bogs remained quite intact throughout the ages. They are truly unique habitats in Hungary, where climate and the lack of high mountains do not favour the persistence of such bogs (see here).