Hortobágy

Hortobágy is the largest continuous natural grassland in Europe and the oldest national park in Hungary, a UNESCO World Heritage Site listed for two thousand years of pastoral land use rather than for wilderness. Grey cattle, curly-horned racka sheep and water buffalo are still herded here by csikós horsemen in blue cloaks who perform the old riding tricks for visitors. The Nine-Arch Bridge carries the road across the plain. Autumn brings up to a hundred thousand common cranes to roost on the fishponds, one of the great bird spectacles of Europe. There is almost nothing built here, and the horizon is the whole point.