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Salamander, Oltâr-patak, Börzsöny, Walk 4

The hills have a variety of habitats suited to reptiles and amphibians. The lidless skink and sand lizard favour the sun-warmed rocks along the trails, and frogs breed precariously in shallow forest pools and flooded ruts of tracks. The spectacularly marked fire salamander can be spotted in the leaf litter along cool wooded stream banks. Despite the depredations of snakeskin hunters over the years, the common viper and other species continue to thrive.

Upland meadows are notable for many species of butterfly such as the beautiful swallowtail. The 25cm carpathian blue slug inhabits the Zemplén, and the black snail, an Ice Age relict, can be found along the old mill streams of the Bükkalja. In summer expect to see many species of longhorn beetle and the rather odd spectacle of stag beetles in flight.

History

Hungary’s highlands are peripheral to Hungarian life today, but they were once the scene of competing empires, faiths and ideologies, and have played a large part in the struggles for national liberation. Settlement in the hills began long before recorded time, and excavations of Hungary’s many caves have provided evidence that the highlands were inhabited about half a million years ago. The region has been notable as a crossing point for the great migrations, and the first important groups were the Bronze Age Illyrians and Thracians, who migrated north from the Balkans into the Carpathian Basin. They built hill forts to defend themselves from another incomer, the northern Celts, who eventually dominated the region. By AD 100 the Romans had defeated the Celts and created the province of Pannonia in the lands west of the Danube. To defend this eastern frontier of the Empire the Romans built a line of fortifications (limes) stretching from the Mecsek to the Danube Bend and deployed Syrian light cavalry against the Sarmatians and Germans.