Vár-Palota Instant Route

Itinerary

• After checking in at the restaurant, start north on the P trail, on the street beside the castle. Upon reaching Coop ABC, continue following the signs along Rózsakút Street, then cross a bridge to the left onto Mátyás király Street, which leads out of the town.
• After passing the last houses, continue along the P trail. A dirt road leads northwest, at a fork veering slightly right through a barrier into a narrow valley, continuing through it (Castle Valley).
• At a rocky fork, turn left, continuing to follow the P trail, then before Bátorkő Castle turn left onto a steep hillside path. The path leads directly below the castle ruins to a small saddle, where turn left onto the rocky P+ path.
• When the path reaches a small clearing, after passing the information board, turn right. Follow the unmarked path until you reach a wide, white gravel road; turn left here.
• The gravel road, unmarked, gently descends toward Várpalota; when you reach an X-shaped fork (waterworks on the left), turn right and follow the dirt road across the field heading west.
• After about 5 kilometers on the unmarked dirt road, the route leads onto a paved road which must be followed to its end: to the right, a dirt road leads west (the fork is easily recognized by a green military guard cabin).
• After leaving the guard cabin, keep left, then follow the dirt road across the field heading southwest. At a barely noticeable Y-shaped fork, take the right branch, leading to the border of Öskü.
• On the border of Öskü, first pass a truck dismantling yard, then a small hill, and turn left toward the village. The dirt road leads into Völgy Street, from which a path in front of the first house on the right crosses to Szikla Street, leading to Szabadság tér. From here Mecset Street leads to the rotunda, then crossing the railway crossing, turn left onto the path parallel with the railway at the foot of a small hill.
• The path leads through houses to Rózsa Street; at Fő Street turn left, cross the tracks again, then at the first opportunity turn right onto Bántai Road. From here, continue straight on the asphalt road, then on a wide, well-traveled dirt road to Várpalota.
• Upon reaching the first houses of Várpalota, turn left, then at the end of this road turn right. Leaving a row of garages behind, enter the town, then continue straight down Rákóczi Ferenc Street to the castle, opposite which at the Museum Garden Restaurant awaits the finish.

Detailed description of the route

In Várpalota, you must first check in at the Museum Garden Restaurant opposite the castle – the start is also the finish location. The impressive Thury Castle and its immediate surroundings reveal much about the city's history. The fortress was built in the 14th century, essentially replacing its predecessor, Bátorkő Castle – the Újlaky Konth family built a more comfortable and more accessible manor house in the forest’s depths instead of the older fortress. Its real significance was recorded during the Turkish occupation: as a stronghold – even after the fall of Fehérvár and Veszprém – it withstood Turkish attacks for decades; legendary commander György Thury served here in that time. Finally, it fell into foreign hands in 1593, thereafter held by Ottoman forces until 1687, then owned by the Zichy family, gradually losing its military importance. Today, a castle history exhibition, local history display, and mining history collection operate within the ancient walls.

Hello Bakony outlaws!

After the first checkpoint, we head north on the K+ trail beside the castle, soon joined from the right by the P trail, which we follow all the way to Bátorkő Castle. We pass a larger shop (where you can replenish supplies if you haven’t yet), then near the Fodor Sára local house on Rózsakút Street. Leaving the last houses on Mátyás király Street, a Jewish cemetery enclosed by a stone wall draws attention on the left. Its gate is secured by a numbered lock, whose code is guessable but requires time – if entering, be sure to lock it upon exit.

Soon we reach the entrance to Castle Valley, blocked by a barrier to vehicles. In this increasingly deep and wild valley, numerous information boards on a nature trail help familiarize with the area's flora, fauna, and geological features, while several picnic sites with tables and benches await hikers. We pass the former Kálistó, and along the valley side – and also beside the path – more and more rocks appear. At a fork, giant boulders tower over hikers’ heads, providing scenic decoration for the route. Here is also the Gazsi-lik small cave, one of about a dozen lining Castle Valley. Anyone can crawl into the roughly 3-meter deep cavity to study the dolomite karstification closely.

The cave may evoke images of Bakony outlaws for many, and it must have been terrifying to cross the valley 150-200 years ago. Today, however, the ordinary hiker only encounters a ruined fortress, Bátorkő Castle, also known as Pusztapalota.

A steep climb leads to a small saddle below the ruins – certainly visitors then struggled with the steep paths in the castle’s heyday. Today Pusztapalota is a ruin of about 15 meters high wall remains, once composed of four parts: the wall surrounding the courtyard and guarding the entrance, a three-story tower above it, and two other towers. Although the Konth family built a new fortress in today's Várpalota, Bátorkő certainly stood by the early Turkish era, in 1564, and later began to decay – either due to natural disaster or probably by the goodwill of some belligerent party.

The first checkpoint is listed in the announcement as "Bátorkő Castle", but it is not to be found here; rather, after heading south on the P+ trail, climbing a steep, rocky-rooted mini-ridge to a small clearing. After verification, it’s worth venturing out onto the rock at the clearing’s edge, which offers magnificent views both to the ruins and Castle Valley.

Here we leave the marked path: where the path turns left into the woods, we take a better-traveled path turning right. Crossing a wider road, we continue straight on the unmarked path southeast until reaching a wide white gravel road that descends straight toward Várpalota. Along this road, several concrete pyramids topped with tanks suddenly appear – indicating that we are traversing a section of the huge Bakony shooting range occasionally used by tanks. This is Central Europe’s largest military shooting range, with roots back to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: nearby Hajmáskér was home to the dualist state’s largest artillery training base and barracks.

Good luck, Bakony miners!

Walking down the tank road, Várpalota appears at the foot of the hill. The town’s silhouette is defined by block apartment buildings, with the Inota aluminum smelter and power plant visible to the left (east), the industrial facilities of Pét Nitrogen Works to the right (southwest), and between them the shimmering water surfaces of the “mine lakes” – all reflecting the settlement’s industrial past and present. The life of the field town changed with the start of coal mining in 1876, as Várpalota gradually developed into a significant mining and industrial town. The lignite extraction created the “mine lakes”: the mines were deep, but surface and near-surface ground movements triggered by the collapse of abandoned shafts, along with the high groundwater level, favored the formation of these lakes. The chemical industry settled in the city at the beginning of the 1930s with the Pét Nitrogen Works – surely everyone has heard of “Pétisó,” a nitrogen fertilizer. After World War II, the building of the iron and steel country began also in Várpalota: based on coal resources, a power plant and aluminum smelter were built in Inota (the latter relying on domestic bauxite deposits – alongside other plants, the entire aluminum industry was represented in Hungary at this time). The glorious industrial past is now mostly represented only by Nitrogénművek Zrt., but it is no longer located in Várpalota as Pétfürdő separated from the town in 1997.

During this industrial history reflection, before reaching the town border, we turn right onto an unmarked cart road leading southwest-west, steadily moving toward the next checkpoint. The “Bánta” checkpoint is reachable by turning off the asphalt road, recognizable by a green military guard cabin. From here, the route follows the southern border of the military territory all the way to Öskü. Paradoxically, parts of the shooting range are Natura 2000 protected areas because one of the main characteristics of areas used by the military is that they have been relatively untouched, preserving natural habitats. However, in the rocky grassland, bare, rocky-karst landscape, hiking becomes monotonous over time, so we are pleased to finally reach Öskü, entering the village known for its rotunda. The next checkpoint is at the rotunda as well, built in the 11th century, thus becoming a thousand years old this century. The small building – which is also a checkpoint – likely owes its origin to King Saint Stephen’s decree obliging every ten villages to build a church. One wonders which nine villages accompanied Öskü a thousand years ago, and if they still exist. Öskü was depopulated during the Turkish era, and the rotunda suffered during the 150 years of foreign rule. But in the early 17th century, the new owners – the Zichy family – settled Slovaks in Bakonyalja, who rebuilt the church, which grew into a community by the mid-19th century: they moved into the new house of God in 1847.

We leave Öskü behind on the Bántai Road heading east – basically a long final stretch, since there is no need to leave the paved and dirt roads in either direction to Várpalota. However, be careful, because one more checkpoint (the "Police Lake") must be passed to complete the route. Instead of the lake, you should look for a section fenced by an angling association, with the water surface farther from the road.

Returning to Várpalota, we descend from the Tési hill to the town center, bypassing the castle from the other side this time. Before the last check-in, you can still visit the Church of Our Lady of the Blessed Virgin or even the Trianon Museum located in the nearby Zichy Castle. Successful finishers can enjoy a dessert along with their finisher’s medal at the Museum Garden Restaurant between 12 and 9 p.m. – the cheesecake is surely suitable for calorie replenishment and tastes good as well.