"The first Benedictine monks settled here in 996. They went on to convert the Hungarians, to found the country's first school and, in 1055, to write the first document in Hungarian. From the time of its founding, this monastic community has promoted culture throughout central Europe. Its 1,000-year history can be seen in the succession of architectural styles of the monastic buildings (the oldest dating from 1224), which still today house a school and the monastic community." - in: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/758
The variety of formations and the fact that they are concentrated in a restricted area means that the 712 caves currently identified make up a typical temperate-zone karstic system. Because they display an extremely rare combination of tropical and glacial climatic effects, they make it possible to study geological history over tens of millions of years.
Rákóczi Cave is located in the spur of Esztramos Hill which is part of the Szalonna Karst, this is about 20km east of Jósvafo in north eastern Hungary. Here, iron mining operations opened up dozens of caves and a few years ago this cave was incorporated into the Aggtelek National Park and was renamed Rákóczi Cave.
Rákóczi Cave contains peculiar dissolution pockets, rock pendants and avens ending in spherical niches. This demonstrates that this cave has been dissolved below the karst water table and that warm waters ascending here in the past have also dissolved part of the speleothems. Today, most of the cave is located well above the water table but Rákóczi Cave still has considerable portions underwater. The mineralisation is characteristic of a hydrothermal cave most of the formations are coralloids, resembling grapes or popcorn.
The present entrance is an old mine adit which leads to a series of chambers developed along a major fault. There is almost as much vertical development as horizontal development. - in: http://www.showcaves.com/english/hu/showcaves/Rakoczi.html
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