We start with a good soak in Eger. A city that has stood between the Mátra and Bukk Hills since medieval times, Eger retains a beautiful array of amber and brown buildings and remnants - including these baths - from the invasion of the Turks.

Slipping into the thermal waters, I rest against the blue-tiled edge of the pool and try not to think about my backpack - all 11 kilograms of it. The irony doesn't escape me - we're pampering ourselves before setting out on a week's worth of hiking in the Mátra Hills.

While largely unknown to foreigners, the Mátras, foothills of the Carpathians, are very popular with Hungarian naturalists and outdoor enthusiasts. Home to animals of all kinds - including wild boar - the area is also veined by a complex network of trails. With a hiking map (A Mátra turistatérképe), available at camping stores in Budapest (a two hour train ride away), it is easy to explore the area's forests, vineyards, rivers, castles and villages, on foot. If we grow tired, buses stop frequently along Highway 24 - the main road through the mountains - and will carry us to the next village and a meal of boar stew and cold beer.

That afternoon, a bus takes us from Eger to Sirok, a small settlement on the eastern edge of the Mátras. After pitching our tent at the Vár Camping campground, we set out on our first trail, steep switchbacks and stairs carved into a sheer rock face, to reach a 13th century wind-and-weather-worn castle. Among the metre-thick stone walls and dusty underground passageways of the castle, the only sign of modern civilization is a contemporary Hungarian flag snapping in the wind.

The act of travelling by foot takes on new dimensions among medieval castles. It becomes obvious that we are stepping in ancient footprints - the footprints of travellers who missed out on the luxury of the coach, invented in the 17th century in the Hungarian city of Kocs. (The next day we see shiny, lacquered specimens of these vehicles, used for hunting parties and state processions, on display in Parádfürdö's Coach Museum.) Other walkers were the Paloc people, isolated northern Magyar peasants, who lived in dwellings such as the whitewashed house-turned-museum in nearby Parád.

Our plan is to hike five or six hours a day and camp in and around villages at night. But first, we take a bus into the heart of the Mátras so the bulk of our hiking will be on downward slopes. When the bus suddenly pulls over to the side of the road, smoke pouring from its overheated engine, my partner Jason and I grab our packs and make a quick getaway, ducking into the woods where there is a sign for the trail. Soon, the rush of the busy highway falls away. It isn't long before our lungs expand, our muscles grow limber and the trek becomes easier. At a creek, we stop to put our packs down, take our shoes and socks off and lower our feet into a shining rapid.

The town of Mátraháza, two kilometres later, feels like an alpine village. At a restaurant, we sit at rough-hewn tables and order delicious chicken paprikash, cool beer and crepes with palinka - Hungarian apricot brandy. Stuffed creatures and animal skins are nailed to the walls, including a huge wild boar, tusks curled skyward, a sinister gleam in its glass eyes.

The next day, we set out for Mount Kékes. Accessible from Mátraháza, one would hardly know that, at 1015 metres, it is the highest peak in Hungary. The fact seems remarkably quiet. Coming from a continent that builds industry around natural attractions (think Niagara Falls), it's surprising to find only a sanatorium, a hotel and a few vendors selling wooden crafts at the end of the road.

A modest cement path leading to the telecommunications tower at the peak is tucked into the trees like an afterthought. The map shows us two trails - the high and the low. We decide on the one that runs along the edge of a cliff, gently declining then passing a castle. Carrying bags of dried fruit and carved walking sticks purchased from local vendors, we find blue crosses marking the route and follow them, painted clearly on about every tenth tree.

In the forest, bark like elephant skin shines silver in the morning light and columnar trees tower above us. It's different than Canadian forests, airy and open and lacking underbrush. As we walk, I think of people passing through in the Middle Ages, hiding in times of war, or taking time for spiritual contemplation during the sterile materialism of Communism. The trees change to pine and the trail gradually calls for caution: In washed-out areas we step carefully among the stones.

Compared to Sirok, the castle Benevar doesn't seem like much - all that's left is part of the wide outer wall and an overgrown ditch that was once the moat. Later, in the impressive Mátra Museum in Gyöngyös, we learn that Benevar's crumbling 13th-century ruins once formed the most significant fortress in the hills, built by the Csobanka family of the Aba clan.

The Mátra Museum houses an elaborate collection of artifacts from the area, including local minerals and insects, and stuffed birds, rodents, deer and boar. Paintings, trophies, weapons and historical documents, trace the relevance of the forested area for naturalists and hunters.

Leaving the castle, we hike the rest of the five-kilometre trail into Mátrafüred. Beyond Mátrafüred, another two-kilmetre trek uphill brings us to Sas-to, a summer camping community on the edge of a large pond.

From Sás-tó, with its restaurant, boat rentals and huge campground, it's easy to explore the area. Mátrafüred is home to sights including the Paloc ethnographic collection and a doll exhibition in which folklore artist Magda Mészáros displays and sells her work. Gyöngyös, the city on the hills' southern edge, has a Franciscan Memorial Library of antiquated books and can be reached by the Mátra Railway, a narrow-gauge train. We camp in Sas-to for three days and hike around the area.

On our last day, we take a trail to a chapel sitting next to a small pond. I am thinking about how walking is an act of curiosity, driven by a desire to intimately explore a place, to put body into the terrain and move it forward, through local air and smells and, in this case, mud. Swamped by recent rain, the trail is challenging, but our steps are lighter without packs, despite the anxiety of seeing what we think are wild boar tracks clustered in the soft earth.

We walk until the trail markers disappear and the path splits into tendrils. For the first time in a week, we're lost, staring confused at our map and the many paths before us. Luckily, we find a man harvesting something in the yellow grass and when we say "Anna," as in Saint Anna chapel, he points west.

A tall crucifix leans out from the slope of the hill. The door is chained and while it seems abandoned, I wonder if people still come here, walking up from the old village of Abasar to pray. Behind the chapel, a small bird-sanctuary is alive with songs and wind whistles through the reeds.

We don't stay long. There's still Abasar and its many wine cellars to explore. A side trail - marked on the map as a dotted line - takes us down past clusters of green grapes to a village road. After pausing to scrape hunks of mud from our shoes, we set off to find our next destination - a quiet, cool room in which to rest with a glass of local wine until we pull ourselves up with our walking sticks, to press into the unknown again.