Beyond the mountains and valleys, in Hont together with Dudince you will find your living water, and even good wine will heal you here. Bite into juicy fruit full of flavor and rediscover your taste for life. Get to know the land that nourishes, the greenery that heals, and new people who were meant to come. Dig out a little wine cellar within yourself, from which you will draw, or your own house in the rock, where you will feel good living.

Here you will find and taste a truly unique healing mineral water; in Europe, you will find something similar only in Vichy, France. Or enjoy traditional specialties and fine wine in Stará hora. Along the way, discover interesting rock dwellings and natural phenomena.

The natural monument Dudince Travertines was created in the spa park by healing water before humans captured it and redirected it into the spa spring. Most of the travertine mounds and terraces are now inactive and shrouded in a haze of nostalgia for the past. The history of the local spa tradition is revealed by an educational trail. As you stroll through the park, you may see roses that have long since ceased to grow, believe in the miraculous power of a spring that no longer exists, or trace the time of the Tatar invasions. In the so-called Roman Baths, bathtubs carved into stone, you may hear the echo of resting Roman soldiers, perhaps the joyful cry of their commander, who at one of the springs, thanks to a fairy, found his lost son.

Hide away in Tesár Gorge, a small canyon-like valley. Touch the rocks uniquely shaped by water, run your hand over the bands of sediment, feel the coolness of volcanic rocks and, if you are lucky, even the falling water of four waterfalls. Go where the loops of the cliffs lead you. And you do not even have to go very far to discover more hiding places. People once supposedly fled from the Turks into the so-called dúpence, rock chambers, and according to the number of openings they gave them fitting names: one-hole, two-hole, and eight-hole.

The southern slopes of the Štiavnica Mountains and the pliable tuff subsoil determined the fate of the wine-growing settlement of Stará hora, which is part of the village of Sebechleby. Charming little houses with small windows grew above hand-dug wine cellars, opening to visitors of various events and agritourism. In the setting of the folk architecture conservation reserve, you can mingle among colorful local folk costumes, enjoy wine and traditional specialties, spend time by the St. John’s bonfire, or get to know the grape harvest the Sebechleby way.

The rock dwellings in Brhlovce also came into being thanks to easily workable volcanic rocks. Fearing the dangerous Turks, people carved living spaces into them that provide pleasant coolness in summer and warmth in winter. Later, the poor lived in them. Even today, some of them are inhabited, while others hide museum exhibits or wine cellars, or serve as utility spaces. So Slovakia, too, has its counterpart to the inhabited caves for which, for example, Sacromonte in Granada, Spain, is famous.

The monastery in Bzovík from the 12th century is among the oldest in Slovakia. After the defeat at Mohács in the 16th century, this peaceful place of concentrated prayers became, thanks to the Balassa family, a fortress – a castle. To this day, the four corner bastions clasp between them the walls of the preserved fortification, just as our ancestors were once gripped by fear of the Turkish threat. After extensive devastation during World War II, only the ruins of a turbulent past remain within their protective embrace.