The cache is part of the ClimateQuest series of 43 caches in 8 European countries, six of which are located in Hungary, the rest in Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia. In Hungary, these caches will take you to interesting places that are somehow connected with nature conservation or climate change.
ACCESSS
By car from the direction of Miskolc, Gömörszőlős and Ózd:
via road 25, turning off towards Aggtelek and passing through Serényfalva and Kelemér. From Kelemér, it can be accessed by turning onto the 2km service road.
By bus:
we can approach the town by transferring in Ózd or Putnok.
On foot and by bicycle the shortest way is through the "Terrible valley" ("Szörnyű völgy") leading from Putnok to Kelemér. There are blue signs that help lead the way.
Arriving in the village, the Gömöri Termékház is found on the main square, which is the starting point of the trip.
DESCRIPTION
The village
The first mention of Gömörszőlős in a document dates back to 1232. The original name of the town was Poszoba, changed to Gömörszőlős in 1904 as a memento to the viticulture that once was, thus also becoming our only village bearing the name of the historical Gömör County. The local population lived almost completely off agriculture and animal husbandry for a long time, pursuing self-sufficient farming.
Due to the development of industrial cities in the area, the majority of young people who were able to work moved away from the village. Therefore, the population has decreased to less than 80 people to date. Agriculture and animal husbandry are only present in a few families as a secondary income source. The traditional way of life is on the road to cessation, but numerous old houses and farm buildings have remained intact, still defining the village scenery. Here, everything is proportionate, human-scale. It is silent here; a pleasant kind of silence. The village, in spite of its small population, has been an important part of the area's cultural life for a long time. Its dwellers are attached to their homes and their pasts. A traditionalist cultural association named after Mihály Tompa has been in operation here for over 50 years, and its members in the village have created and maintained several ethnographic and art collections.
Ecological Institute For Sustainable Development (Ökológiai Intézet Alapítvány)
The Miskolc-based Ecological Institute has been at work in the town since 1993 and started a village development program by the title of "Gömörszőlős - a sustainable village". As part of the program, the associates of the institute have renovated numerous old buildings; they are encouraging the pursuit of the traditional way of life, the preservation of ethnic crafts and traditions; they have established a wool carder workhouse and they also help with organising tourism. They receive groups in their newly built education centre and organise free-time and awareness-raising activities in the name of sustainable lifestyle and ecological thinking. Thanks to the Foundation, Gömörszőlős has a shop once again, under the name Gömöri Termékház. The shop serves as a convenience store as well as a café, full of local groceries produced by organic farms in the area.
Attractions
The National Blue Trail (Kék túra) leading towards Aggtelek passes through the town.
We can find many places worth seeing in the village. It is worth to visit the coffered-ceiling reformed church built in 1824, where a permanent exhibit can also be found featuring photos of the painted cassette ceilings of other churches in the county. The objects in the ethnographic collections illustrate the folk life of the area, while the related open-air collection exhibits objects pertaining to the people's farming and forestry work. In its small gallery we can see the works of fine artists related to Gömör, as well as artwork inspired by the village and its folk life. In the summers the village is home to fine arts camps. The artistic director of these creative camps is painter Ágnes Máger from Miskolc.
The infrastructure is well-developed. Tourists can find accommodation at the Kosbor Vendégház, the Biokertes Vendégház, and the newly built Pohánka Vendégház, which is powered by renewable energy. In the back garden of the Biokertes Vendégház there are several things to discover; don't be shy to go in and take a look around! A wooden bridge arches over a tiny brook. It comes into sight as we go towards the windmill. If we cross the bridge, we find ourselves on a barefoot path ("mezítlábas ösvény") towards the left, which rises with a gentle slope to a cot made of straw bale cemented with mud. The path transitions from rough stone gravel through a more gentle pebble bed to a brick pavement, then leading to ever smoother beds made of natural materials. If we take off our shoes, we can experience the touch of the fine sand, the forest's fallen leaves and the moss as we get to the straw bale cot. After viewing the cot, we now proceed from finer to rougher ground, and, richer with this experience, we can step into the depths of a maze. This is not your typical labyrinth, where one walks around searching for the exit at random. We walk the paths with task sheet filled with questions* in our hands, and the right answers show us the way out. If we answer incorrectly, dead ends warn us of our mistake. Because this is, in fact, the labyrinth of becoming ecologically aware, where we can find our way if we give correct answers to the environmental challenges of our everyday lives. After we successfully escaped the maze, our prize can be some time spent in a small sauna house, and we can alleviate the fatigue of the trip with a nice cold bath in a vat**. After the bath and sauna, we glimpse the building of the barn cinema - barn stage.
Upon departing from the village, there is a several hundred years old orchard between beautiful hills. It is here, in the western side valley of the Szőlő-hegy (Grape mountain) of Gömörszőlős where a resting and meditation place was created. A trellis built from wooden columns offers the wanderer a chance to relax; you can prepare food in the oven and choose from five vineyard guard cots if you want to spend the night. The cots have simple plank beds for lying down, from which there is a view of the outdoors, and you can admire the starry sky on clear nights. If you like to be deep in your own thoughts, practice self-awareness, and therefore desire quietude and the forest's little noises at night, this is the perfect place. Everything is provided for, except water, because the well is dry. The once abundant wells are dry nowadays for the better part of the year; they are indicators of the environmental changes. The bared, once forest-covered but now grassy hillsides let the water run down quickly, while in the past, the forest drank it in, kept it in place. At the same time, the ever more radical and rapidly changing climate brings less precipitation to the area than before.
* You can ask for a task sheet at the Ecological Institute. Address: 3728 Gömörszőlős, Kassai Street 37-39.
** You can inquire about the vat bath ath the Ecological Institute.
LOCATION OF THE CACHE
STAGE 1 / Starting point
Gömöri termékház, coordinates:
COORDINATES
N 48°22.4353’
E 20°25.6451’
Look at the map! What kind of bird can you see opposite the shop?
Circle the letters of the correct answer. The letters represent the numbers below them. Fill in the gaps with the numbers, in the order of the letters of the word!
| A |
Á |
C |
F |
G |
I |
J |
K |
L |
N |
Ó |
R |
S |
U |
Ú |
V |
Y |
| 2 |
1 |
4 |
2 |
3 |
6 |
7 |
0 |
4 |
3 |
8 |
9 |
2 |
0 |
9 |
7 |
5 |
COORDINATES OF THE SECOND POINT
N 48° 22.3 _ _ _, E 20° 25 . _ 5 _
Before heading toward the second point, find the information sign on the main square. This will help you decipher the coordinates of the third point.
If you have found the sign, look through it carefully! Which towns does the pilgrimage of sustainability (fenntarthatóság zarándokútja) comprise
Underline the names of the correct towns and fill in the coordinates with the corresponding numbers, in the order of solving the task.
Alsószuha / 3
Bánréve / 1
Dövény / 0
Gömörszőlős / 7
Imola / 3
Kelemér / 2
Putnok / 5
Ragály / 8
Serényfalva / 2
Szuhafő / 6
Trizs / 8
Zádorfalva / 4
COORDINATES OF THW THIRD POINT N 48° 22.3
_ _ _, E 20° 25 .
_ _ _ _
STAGE 2
In the meditation house you can find information that will reveal the northern coordinates of the cache.
STAGE 3
In this stage you will find the eastern coordinates of the cache.
STAGE 4
Old willow: with the information collected at the second and third points, we head towards Zádorfalva, following the BLUE trail. We get to a fork that is guarded by a willow adorned with woodpecker nests on the right; here, we have to keep left, continuing our adventure on a gravel road.
Traveling the hills of Gömör, we arrive at another, triple, fork, which is decorated with a thicket on the right. Here we also continue our journey to the left. We have to be careful because if the grass is tall and hasn't been mowed, it can hide the path from our eyes. The below coordinates might be of help:
COORDINATES N 48° 23.3665’, E 20° 25.7632’
Descending from the hill, we get to another fork after a few hundred metres, where, turning right, we can start our search for the exact place of the cache using the information from the second and third points.
We wish you a successful quest and a nice trip!