What may be the last visit to the Vizhordo except by authorities and workers was proposed by Eva and Istvan Nagu over dinner after they had brought me to their home from the Jim Sanders churches Konferencia in Budapest late Saturday afternoon, June 14, 1997.

There were four of us, Istvan, Eva, a lady who travels with them to several churches, and myself. The drive to the entry gate proved uneventful. We unlatched it and entered behind the old guards' house for the palace just adjacent to the Varkert Bazaar. I noted that a sliding padlock assembly had been installed on the gate since my last visit which Viktoria organized, with Zole of Tatabanya, Peter, and Csaba, and their wives.

As we entered the inner gate and walked toward the entrance to the "corkscrew"/"dugohuzo" I looked and said, "This does not look good." And the closer we got, the worse it appeared. A second steel barrier had been installed at the place where we used to descend from the great staircase built by Ybl Miklos to the back of #3 Ybl Miklos Ter. When I saw the first barrier installed higher up on the stairway on Monday, May 26 as Istvan and Miklos and Erika and I negotiated the vizhordo in two trips, I did not expect, and there is no need for the blockade at the top of the corkscrew.

We noted that the empty room with the balcony of #3 Ybl Miklos Ter had a new set of bars with two padlocks and the balcony itself was walled off. Then we saw the worst. There was a barred iron gate padlocked, cutting off all possibility of entering the tunnel, I thought.

But Istvan had another idea. He went to his car and came back with a tool. There is more than one way to skin a cat! The tool was a file, and ISTVAN LERESTELTE A LAKATOT! It did not take long to file through the padlock's top.

He removed it and put it in his bag.

I noticed that there was now an electric cable stretching from a window of the old DunaVar restaurant all the way to the corkscrew stairway down into the vizhordo. We descended and noted more electric cable which we followed up into the tunnel where one was connected to a generator and another came out of the generator and down stairs to the cul-de-sac with the aperture into Ybl Miklos Ter #3.

I kept the "talking machine" (cassette recorder) running all the time. The place had been really cleaned up. Most of the rubble was gone from the wide tunnel, though the bottles the "intruder" was using when the group negotiated the stairs on May 28 were still on the ledge at the skylight at the top landing of the wide tunnel. There I ran out of film and cassette tape. I thought I had another roll of film but I did not. Fortunately I did have a blank cassette tape so the sound story is complete.

We went into the narrow part of the climb and turned left to follow the perpendicular passage to its end at the two windows at ground level outside.

This passage had also been cleared of most of its rubble. The bed springs were gone. I don't think they were there the first time I negotiated the passage last year but they were the second time.

We retraced our steps and continued up the sloped passage way to where the stairs began again. The steps were terribly cluttered with rubble and it was most difficult keeping footing. But we made it to the final corkscrew which ascends to two different levels of the p alace. At the intermediate exit we were surprised to find the iron gate wide open. We exited and if it had not been for the barrier down near the bottom of the great staircase we might have descended to the car that way. But that was impossible. Istvan would not have had enough "elbow grease" to saw an opening through that barrier with his file. So we went back inside the intermediate entrance/exit just after a young couple came along and looked in but did not enter. We climbed up the last part of the corkscrew steps to the upper entrance and it was locked. We banged on the door but hardly hoped anyone would come and let us out.

Back down the narrow passageway we went, Istvan first helping me avoid the booby traps and then helping the two ladies. The rest of the descent proved uneventful, but we were all praising the Lord enthusiastically for letting us in. And I was laughing almost all the way down about Istvan filing away the padlock.

After ascending the final corkscrew stairs we exited. I asked Istvan to try to put the padlock in place and after some trouble he managed to get it to stay put, but now I wish we had taken it as a souvenir.

HALLELUJAH! ISTVAN LERESTELTE A LAKATOT! ISTEN YO   (God is good)! .

This trip was the best adventure in the Vizhordo since the day in August 1996 when two men and their dog, who may have been angels (the men, not the dog), helped Rosa, Viktoria, and me find the way in for the first time. But I MUST get it at least once more with enough film to finish the project! And I would like to enter at the castle's intermediate gate and descend as did the water carriers of old.

I've put three rolls of film in my camera bag. I would like to go back tonight!

ADDENDA:

I managed to get into the Vizhordo one more time, on Tuesday, June 17, my twelfth entry in less than one year. One week later I took Paul Risser, John Watson, and Chuck Middlebrook there but we found its gates tightly welded shut. Thus ended adventures spanning two years.