It’s not just people locked into their homes due the epidemic who dream of a post-coronavirus epidemic. Many are already starting to plan their first trips after vaccination, so National Geographic has compiled a list of 25 ideal post-quarantine destinations, including the Hungarian region of Hortobágy.
Framed by five categories (Adventure, Culture and History, Nature, Family, Sustainability), these superlative destinations speak of resilient communities, innovative conservation efforts, and thrilling opportunities for future explorations, the journal says. It describes Hortobágy as follows:
Cowboys and cranes in Europe’s wide-open plains
The broad spaces of Hortobágy National Park are nature-made for social distancing. Covering nearly 200,000 acres of the Great Hungarian Plain in eastern Hungary, the expansive World Heritage site preserves the largest remaining native grassland in Europe as well as pastoral traditions dating back millennia.
Poor soil for farming helped keep Hortobágy’s mosaic of alkaline marshes, meadows, pastures, and loess-steppe vegetation intact. Free from plowing and significant development, this puszta (barren land) flourished. The resulting rich grassland ecosystem, protected since 1973, provides critical habitat for some 340 bird species, including tens of thousands of winged fall migration travelers, such as gray geese and common cranes, that make the park one of central Europe’s best birding locations.
Hortobágy isn’t strictly for the birds, though. A few hundred shepherds and cowboys, called csikós, still roam the wavy grass, giving families a rare look at centuries-old animal husbandry traditions. Horse-drawn carriage tours pass by herdsmen and their puli dogs, an ancient Hungarian breed with a coat like a mop, and racka sheep, famous for their corkscrew horns. Tours typically feature demonstrations of big-thrill rodeo skills—like galloping while standing on the backs of two horses—by daring csikós dressed in their flowing, blue-and-black traditional folk wear.
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