No number, no street name

We all love mysteries and adventures but we avoid them too, as mysteries make us feel uneasy and adventures are scary.  Yet, there are exciting mysteries and refreshing adventures at an arm’s length from each of us. How can we reach them? For instance, by finding a house with no address details.  

The mysterious building

In Cserhátsurány, Nógrád county, at about a mile’s distance from the last cottage of the village, there is such a house. It is a newly built cottage with faultless red rooftiles, stone covering and plaster, with a rough paving yet unworn out by the cars in the parking lot. Next to the house, there are fruit trees on the hillside, and the water in the lake is crystal clear without redgrass or water lilies – although it is only a question of time to see nature take over as it has done with the creek down in the valley. How come this cottage is here, why build it? It is here to carry mysteries and offer adventures to its guests.

”Jópalócok” Guest House

A guest house is neither a hotel nor an inn. A guest house is there for the guests, not for the keeper’s profit. Staff presence is discreet, only just as necessary. Guests can spend time carefree with friends and relations, while unseen hands do the cleaning, check the pool temperature, sweep the snow off the ice on the lake and fill up the kitchen and bar with all kinds of good things.

Where lie the mystery and the adventure?

Mystery and adventure lie in ”Palócország”, the Palots country itself, for the guest house is just in the middle. Or almost.

This land has an uncontested beauty, its mysteries and adventures, however, still lie undiscovered by many. Mikszáth, a nineteenth-century author coming from the region, says:  Oh, lovely flowers of Palotsland! Maybe even a fairies’ garden or the pearls of the East cannot surpass the charm of your juniper-berries. And indeed, this land is uniquely intact. Nógrád county is the most afforested county in Hungary with half its territory covered by woodlands full of game, mushrooms, wild flowers and berries. Apart from the natural treasure, the region’s cultural heritage is also unrivalled.