A Tramp in the Woods

Heather: Pécs is built at the foot of the Mecsek Hills and there are some very lovely walking trails very close by. We have decided to take advantage of the spring weather and do our walking in the various nature reserves here. The floor of the forest here is covered with the beautiful green of an early plant called medve hagyma. It is an edible member of the onion family and is highly prized by local Hungarians. We saw many people out picking medve hagyma while we were walking. We even picked some ourselves. I gave most of it away but I did keep some to put in the rakott krumplie I made for district lunch.

I went for a tarmp in the woods and here he is! Norm up the creek as usual! This is in the Égervölgy or
valley of the alders. There are some magnificent old alders (and old elders) and beech trees in this valley.
                                                             
The forest floor is carpeted with many different kinds of wild flowers along with the medve hagyma. I nearly dislocated my shoulder trying for a better picture of these lovely blue squill blossoms.

The Hungarians do a wonderful job of logging there forests. Here is a picture of a typical logging pile in a forest reserve. The loggers go throught the woods cutting selected trees by hand. The trees are cut off at ground level so the stumps are hardly noticable, cut into managable lengths, and then all the brush collected so there is no debris left on the forest floor. Except for random wood piles one would not know that there is  logging going on.

The end result is that we can see all the lovely spring frowers growing through last year's fallen leaves!
I could not resist taking pictures of every new varietly of flower I saw. These are primroses.

It is wonderful to see flowers growing wild that I have grown in my garden at home.

This is a close up of the hó virág that is in the header picture. I am going to plant a field of these at home!

This is a patch of Grecian wind flower. There are places here that are covered with these lovely plants. My pictures just do not do them justice! So as you can tell, I am having a wonderful time strolling through the woods and collecting pictures. Yesterday Norm and I spent 3 hours walking up and down the hills. We were looking for famous ruins but we never found them! Next time!
Norm: Yes a pair of old relics looking for ruins. We enjoy our hikes in the woods, but we have to do it early in the morning before our brains figure out what we are doing. Especially enjoy the hills, if for no other reason than to just hear heavy breathing again.