Ilya Burlak

USA - 10-Feb-25 -

I visited Pál-völgyi Cave during my stay in Budapest in November 2024. I did not plan to see more than one cave in this serial submission, and based on my research, Pál-völgyi provided the best balance of accessibility and interest of the six of them. The roughly half-kilometer subterranean walk takes about an hour to complete.

The visit is always guided and always in Hungarian. Foreigners are directed to download an app with an audio guide in several languages. The English version is narrated in such a boring and tedious fashion that I put the phone away after the second stop. The live guide was occupied by a group of local teenagers on a school field trip. He did point out a couple of highlights to me in English, but otherwise made only a passing effort to ensure that the tour did not leave the only non-Hungarian-speaking person too far behind, and I was able to linger here or there on my own. 

The cave walls exhibit dripstone formations throughout, including named attractions such as the Organ, the Zoo, or the Theater. Probably the most eye-catching chamber is the one known as the Wonderland, headlined by a group of stalagmites called Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

There is no real wow factor here. The appeal of exploring a cave will vary among visitors, and if you are a cave aficionado, this will not be the most impressive cave you've ever seen. It is hard to define what may qualify the six caves for recognition, clusters of speleothems that illustrate the geological processes that shaped this area millions of years ago aside.

A romantic feeling of being the sole discoverer of the place whenever I had an opportunity to stay back from the group certainly helped with the overall impression (clearly, not everyone would be afforded such freedom; I got lucky with the composition of my tour). So on balance, I am reasonably happy to have visited Pál-völgyi as an attraction. But I doubt it and the other caves deserve WH inscription.

Pál-völgyi is a bit out of the way on the western edges of the city. While a couple of bus routes stop right by the visitor center, their schedule is infrequent and the routes themselves are not too useful for any other points of interest. Using Bolt for getting rides to and from the cave may be the most convenient option.

Read more from Ilya Burlak here.