White houses
Dark wooden roofs.
Elekes Andor — CC BY 4.0 · Elekes Andor — CC BY 4.0 · Elekes Andor — CC BY 4.0 · Elekes Andor — CC BY 4.0 · Elekes Andor — CC BY 4.0
Hollókő is a village in Nógrád County in northern Hungary, set in a valley of the Cserhát hills about 91 km northeast of Budapest and about 69 km in a straight line from it. Its name means «raven stone» in Hungarian. The village was built in the 13th century and developed in the 18th and 19th, and it is a well-preserved ethnographic village of the Palóc people, with traditional wooden architecture and its original layout of houses, farms and orchards. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1987 as an exceptional record of rural life before modern farming. On the hill above stand the ruins of a castle first mentioned in 1310. A cobbled main street runs between low white houses under steep dark wooden roofs, with wooden porches and fences. The houses face the street with their gable ends, and wooded hills surround the village, turning yellow and orange in autumn. Several houses hold small museums of crafts and rural life. The village hosts folk celebrations at Easter and other seasons, when it gets crowded.
Dark wooden roofs.
The village's heart.
On the hills.
Hollókő, Nógrád County, northern Hungary
Walking is free; the museums charge.
At Easter and folk festivals.