Šomoška
The landscape preserves its memory for ages in rock layers, the shapes of hills and stone. In southern Slovakia, the Stone Waterfall beneath Šomoška Castle is one of the Cerová Highlands' most remarkable natural formations. Proof that even what seems motionless can hold a story of movement.
Some places were created by people, but nature spent millions of years shaping some of the most beautiful.
Slovak heritage is more than the buildings, traditions and objects people have left behind. It also includes the landscape. Rocks, forests, rivers and places that were here long before us and will remain long after us.
In southern Slovakia, near the village of Šiatorská Bukovinka, lies a unique natural formation, one of the most remarkable places in the Cerová Highlands. The Stone Waterfall beneath Šomoška Castle.
A PLACE OF CONTRASTS
In the Šomoška National Nature Reserve, regular dark basalt columns descend from a rock face, curving into the shape of a stone waterfall. At first glance, they resemble water that stopped and turned to stone in a single instant.
They are the remains of volcanic activity dating back approximately four million years. Hot lava gradually cooled and cracked, forming stone columns that still bear the trace of the landscape's movement. Powerful geological processes thus created something enduring and serene.
A STORY HIDDEN BENEATH THE CASTLE
This Stone Waterfall lies directly beneath Šomoška Castle, linked to it not only by location, but also by the stone itself. Local basalt was once quarried and used as a building material, including in the castle's construction and repairs. The natural story of the landscape thus became entwined with human history.
Basalt quarrying also helped reveal the Stone Waterfall's distinctive form. What had long been hidden within the hill gradually emerged, revealing its almost perfect regularity.
Nearby lies the Stone Sea, a slope covered with countless fragments of basalt. Together with the waterfall and the castle hill, it forms a landscape in which the traces of ancient volcanic activity can still be read.
JEWELLERY OF MOTION IN STILLNESS
The regularity of the basalt columns, their cascading rhythm and their unusual sense of movement inspired our new jewellery collection. Into its shapes, we have woven a landscape that took millions of years to form. A place born of fiery lava that now resembles water. Stone that is solid and enduring, yet seems to be in motion.
The Stone Waterfall is proof that the landscape holds its memory for a very long time. In layers of rock, in the shapes of hills and in stone that still bears the trace of movement, though that movement ceased long ago.
A place that was here long before us and can become a part of you, too.
A piece of Šomoška, captured with humility.