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It is rare to find public conveniences in villages, and the toilet for the bar is probably a very primitive affair such as a shed around the back. Things are set to improve, and cafés often have very good facilities. Toilets in the rail and bus stations of small towns are often in a poor condition and have no toilet paper unless there is an attendant to whom you pay a few forints. Look for the universal WC sign or Mosdó, and if there is no male or female symbol on the WC door Férfi is man and Női woman.

Monkshood on Csóványos, Börzsöny, Walk 4

Flora, Fungi and Fauna

The actions of thermal springs and karst drainage have created today’s landscape of deep wooded valleys, montane beech forest, damp gullies, caves, sink-holes, sun-bleached limestone outcrops, upland meadows and rolling downland, providing habitats for a variety of rare and endangered plants. Hungary’s vegetation zones range from Carpathian in the northern hills to Mediterranean in the south, but there are also pockets of sub-alpine, Illyrian and Boreal species which are relicts from the Ice Age. The basalt crags in the Balaton region provide a micro-climate for the lip fern, a survivor of warmer times, and the open karst and volcanic outcrops harbour several species of stonecrop and saxifrage. In the sinkholes of the Bükk-fennsík plateau temperatures have been recorded well below freezing on a summer night, creating a unique habitat for the aconite, gentian, carline thistle and Austrian dragonshead. Hungary’s position in east-central Europe and touching on the Balkan peninsula encourages forest to grow at high altitudes. Beech, hornbeam and oak are the commonest species, although there are many varieties of fruit trees and bushes specific to Hungary.