From the shore of Lake Balaton to the city of queens

Itinerary

• Start from the train station heading north on Petőfi Sándor Street, then turn left opposite the bus station onto Jókai Mór, then Óvári Street; from here go straight up to Felsőörsi Road.
• Upon reaching Felsőörsi Road, turn right; this road leads straight to the named village under the Öreg Hill vineyards and you have to continue straight across the main road.
• After leaving Felsőörs and cycling about 2.5 kilometers, turn left at the first bus stop towards Köveskútpuszta. Crossing the plain, you reach main road 73; turn left here.
• From main road 73, immediately take the first opportunity (about 1.5 km) to turn right towards Nemesvámos/Veszprémfajsz.
• Follow this road to Nemesvámos (it is worth making a detour at Veszprémfajsz due to the Calvary), then at the first street on the village border turn right if you want to see the burial mound.
• Within Nemesvámos, turn right onto Malom Street; cycling direction signs help here, leading mostly on bike paths to the center of Veszprém.
• From Veszprém city center (from Óváros Square under the castle) reach the bike path again through County Hall Square, which leads all the way to Balatonalmádi: after leaving Erzsébet Promenade and Erzsébet Park, turn left onto Stadion Street, then at the roundabout turn right onto Almádi Road.
• At Szentkirályszabadja, at a traffic light intersection, you can take a detour to the former military barracks (bike path leading to Litér).
• Within Szentkirályszabadja and leaving the settlement, just follow the bike path to Balatonalmádi, where upon reaching the exhibited steam engine, turn right to climb up to the Óvári lookout, or turn left (passing under the locomotive) to return to the route starting point.

Detailed description of the route

We start the tour from Balatonalmádi, one of the popular resorts on the northern shore. Although many people only think of the beach and holidays in connection with Lake Balaton, it offers numerous other ways to relax, and Almádi itself abounds in sights that we can mostly visit after the tour.

From the Hungarian sea shore to the Roman world

Starting from the train station: the railway played a big role in Almádi becoming a popular resort town in the early 20th century; the tracks reached here from both Veszprém and Székesfehérvár in 1909. We reach the road to Felsőörs following quiet side streets parallel to the busy road 71, passing the Saint Imre Church built in 1934 in the Hungarian Art Nouveau style, which was needed due to the increasing population in the 1930s.

Next to the church is the Chapel of the Holy Right Hand, whose history is quite amazing. In short: Maria Theresa brought the Holy Right Hand from Ragusa to Buda in 1771 as a gesture to the Hungarian estates; a small chapel was built in the royal palace for the relic. This chapel was demolished in the 19th century due to expansion of the royal seat, but another was built in its place. The palace was heavily damaged during the siege of Budapest in World War II, but the chapel survived: it was buried under ruins but was rediscovered in the 1950s during demolition and renovation. Remarkably, in 1958 it was transported and rebuilt in the lakeside settlement, which is what we see today in Almádi.

The road to Felsőörs climbs almost all the way to the village bearing its name, crossing over Öreg Hill, where small and large wine presses between vineyards create an authentic northern shore atmosphere on both sides of the road. Felsőörs' best-known landmark is the provost church, dedicated to the Penitent Saint Mary Magdalene. The Romanesque church has preserved much of its original form, best appreciated when approaching from behind and circling around to the entrance in the bell tower. Like the Saint Imre Church in Almádi, this building is constructed from the popular building material of the Balaton Uplands, the red Permian sandstone, about 310 million years old, colored reddish by iron oxide; this stone surfaces also around Balatonalmádi, Alsóörs, Csopak, Balatonszepezd, Révfülöp and is therefore also of natural interest. Leaving Felsőörs northbound towards Veszprém, the road gently climbs and a bald hill appears in the distance topped with a Calvary.

Veszprémfajsz is reached first by cycling through Köveskútpuszta, a farmstead, then a short section along main road 73 (which mountain bike riders can avoid via forest roads), and finally turning onto a low-traffic road. The Calvary with 14 stations, built before the 1780s on the southern hill of the village, offers a magnificent view northwards to the Bakony hills, and east and west to the Balaton Uplands slopes. To the south, the lake water sparkles and much of our route is visible from here. It is a good spot to eat a sandwich or muesli bar while enjoying the landscape.

At the northern end of the village is Balácapuszta, where a museum built on the ruins of a Roman villa farm takes you back almost two millennia. The 9-hectare estate was surrounded by stone walls with 30-40 main buildings and about 100 ancillary buildings: in the central part, in a park-like setting, there were carefully built residential buildings, baths, enclosed courtyards, and ornamental gardens. The economic section housed workshops, granaries, stables, and other production facilities. This is the largest known villa farm in the Balaton Uplands, with researchers knowing five hundred such estates in the Pannonia province, i.e. in today’s Transdanubia (nearby at Szentkirályszabadja, Gyulafirátót, and Örvényes). Today the central residential building, the stone storehouse, and the herb garden are open to visitors from spring to autumn, and the burial mound near the boundary of Nemesvámos is accessible year-round. On Likas Hill once stood a mausoleum where the Balác family could have been buried; the grave has been disturbed and robbed several times but still holds a special atmosphere being the ruins surrounded by a circular wall.

North of the village, along main road 77, a historic inn awaits visitors. A Roman military road once ran where the current asphalt road is; along its successor, a royal toll station operated in the early 1700s and was run by minor nobles of the nearby village (hence the village’s name). According to legends, famous outlaws like Sobri Jóska or Savanyú Jóska also frequented the inn.

The city of queens

From Nemesvámos, a bike path leads to Veszprém. At the last houses of the village, next to a small playground, there is a cool cyclist rest area where you can enjoy your current muesli or sandwich to prepare for riding on the almost highway-quality bike path into the city of queens. The built cycling infrastructure leads almost completely to the old town along József Attila Street (though after passing the cemetery, you have to share the space with pedestrians), so it’s impossible to get lost while cycling in Veszprém. The county seat offers enough sights for several days, but you can definitely pick and choose even for a one-day tour (which is advisable).

The route passes through the castle district, where most sights are concentrated; it’s best to start sightseeing with the Fire Tower, from which you can see far in every direction. The tower was originally possibly one of the castle’s bastions in the Middle Ages; later, the 1810 Mór earthquake damaged the building, which was first due to be demolished but then was strengthened and raised a bit to serve as a watchtower for fire guards. In 1891, “to signal fires faster,” it was connected by telephone to the fire chief’s home and to the town hall.

Speaking of the town hall: the romantic-style building next to the Fire Tower in Óváros Square was originally built as a church bank; it took its current function in 1990. Entry to Óváros is through the Gate of Heroes, built by 1939, showcasing the history of the 1848/49 revolution and war of independence, World Wars I and II, and the heroes and events of the 1956 revolution in Veszprém.

Óváros is traversed by the atmospheric Vár Street, ending where tourist attractions line up. The best known of these is probably Saint Michael's Cathedral, probably founded by King Saint Stephen’s wife, Queen Gizella; it is certain that queens were crowned by the bishop of Veszprém here for centuries. The original church on the site was possibly built during the reign of Prince Géza, and under King Stephen expanded with two towers in the Romanesque style. After a fire at the end of the 14th century, it was rebuilt in Gothic style and destroyed during the Turkish period, with only the crypt remaining today. Today, in Neo-Romanesque style, the basilica proudly stands on Trinity Square, recalling its former (imagined) shape.

Right beside it stands the Archbishop's Palace, a prominent masterpiece of Hungarian Baroque architecture, housing among other things a library with 65,000 volumes, an interior exhibition, and a display remembering Queens Erzsébet and Zita. Opposite it is the Salesianum, the tourism center of the Veszprém Archdiocese. On the upper floor, rooms decorated with splendid Baroque frescoes can be seen; you can learn about medicinal plants and their effects in the glass-floored herb room and garden, and the attic houses a liturgical exhibition giving insight into liturgical spaces, sounds, and objects, as well as a violin maker’s workshop you can peek into.

At the end of Vár Street, in the company of the statues of Saint Stephen and Gizella, you can catch a glimpse of the northern part of the city (including the famous viaduct) and the Bakony Mountains. If that’s not enough, you can spend at least half a day in the city zoo, admire the Art Nouveau houses on Óváros Square, or visit the Bakony House, a residential building modeled after a small-noble peasant house, one of the earliest Hungarian open-air ethnographic exhibitions.

The ghost town and the dismantled railway

From Veszprém, heading once again towards Balaton: practically a bike path leads all the way down from Óváros to the shore; with a small detour, we also follow this. The detour occurs in Szentkirályszabadja, where at a traffic-light intersection the bike path branches between Almádi and Litér’s asphalt stripes. Following the latter, you must cycle about two kilometers towards the former Soviet barracks. The bike path ends a few hundred meters before the ghost town, from where a wide bulldozer road leads to the "Hungarian Pripyat." The Chernobyl analogy is a bit strong (the article’s author has a basis for comparison), but it is indeed a special experience to ride among completely deserted houses and overgrown vegetation on the deserted roads. The airfield next to the ghost town was started to be built in 1938, but the concrete runway was completed in the 1950s under Soviet control. It was first home to MiG-15 and JAK-19 planes, then to the 87th Bakony Helicopter Regiment and thousands of Soviet soldiers until 1990. The barracks’ decay began around the political changes and continues since then.

Returning to Szentkirályszabadja, we turn onto the bike path heading towards Almádi and follow it almost to the end of the route. First, the road winds through the village, then reaches a field, and after a right-left curve combination, it reaches the former Veszprém-Alsóörs railway track, easily recognized by a former (still inhabited) railway guard house. The first train ran on the tracks in 1908; the line was inaugurated in 1909, creating a direct connection through the Bakony to Győr. In 1969 traffic ceased first on the Alsóörs-Meggyespuszta section, and three years later on the remaining Meggyespuszta-Veszprém section; the track is still easily detectable on satellite images or detailed maps.

Only one or two culverts remain towards Balatonalmádi, the former building of the Remete Valley stop and a steam locomotive exhibited in town preserve the memory of the railway. The former characteristic draft horse of the side lines, the 375 series locomotive (it must have been hard work to be a stoker heading towards Veszprém...) stands on a stone bridge – here you turn right towards the Óvári lookout.

After a steep climb, you can enjoy a well-deserved panorama of Balaton. The Óvári lookout is named after Dr. Ferenc Óvári, a local lawyer who did much for the construction of both the lookout and the railways affecting the village. From here, the shore is really just a roll away, although it is worth taking a detour (with some climbing) to the fortress church, which could have stood here in the 11th-12th centuries, with Gothic remodeling possibly three centuries later. It is used today by the Reformed Church and has a stone wall enclosed and puritan interior.

Returning to the train station, in Saint Stephen Park, alongside the king’s carved words into a tree, you can admire the sculpture by Gábor Mihály, a bronze figure called Pannonia Aqua. During the summer bathing season, a good example leading the way, you can follow a female torso passing through the waves of Balaton at the nearby beach.