Adventurous tour through the Star Park to the Open-Air Museum

Itinerary

• Our route starts from Katica tanya at the K◼ sign.
• In Szilvásszentmárton, at the first intersection, turning left at the K sign, we cross to Zselickisfalud.
• After the Hunting Exhibition Memorial Grove, following the K▲ sign, we reach the Zselic Star Park.
• Continuing from the star park on our marking, after 600 m we turn right at the K● sign.
• After the Ropoly Valley Fishing Lake, we turn right to the K sign.
• Before the Ropoly Hunting Lodge, we turn left following the P sign.
• After the 2nd stream crossing, we follow the Z sign straight ahead and walk to Szenna.

Detailed description of the route

Patca and Katica Tanya

Patca is the smallest village in Somogy county, first mentioned officially in 1252 as Poczyta. Until 1726, it was owned by several noble families, then by the Kaposfő Nursian Saint Benedict provostship, and in the early 20th century by the Vallás foundation. In this small village with declining population, the Katica Tanya Adventure Center was constructed starting in 2001 and opened in 2003, not only making the small settlement famous but also creating several jobs. The 13-hectare complex offers various programs for both young and old. Among others, it features Central Europe's largest dry, covered giant slide park, Europe's largest wooden labyrinth, and Transdanubia's longest 190-meter "adrenaline slide." In very hot weather, the water playground is especially recommended, next to which there is a 13th-century palisade castle where from spring to autumn on Saturday evenings you can watch fireball throwing. Besides climbing walls, trampoline park, and many developmental games, visitors can also meet about forty types of domestic animals. The center's diverse accommodations also facilitate multi-day relaxation.

Setting off

Our route starts next to Katica Tanya at the K◼ sign, which passes the tourist house of the center, followed by a short forest section leading along the edge of a valley-opening panoramic field. Later, a country road takes us to Szilvásszentmárton. The village name first appeared in a 14th-century papal tithe register and has been owned by several noble families throughout history. It is the birthplace of the oriental scholar and writer Lőrincz L. László. At the first intersection, turning left at the K sign, we cross into Zselickisfalud.

In the valley between the two settlements, a flood protection reservoir was created in 2007 on the Szentmártoni ditch, next to which (on the Szilvás side) a promenade with resting spots was built.

Zselickisfalud

We enter Zselickisfalud at the Heroes' Square. The village was first mentioned in a document in 1339 as Kys Folud. Later it belonged to the Kaposvár castle estate and was owned by the Esterházy family; it received its current name in 1909. The village square hosts monuments for victims of World War I and II, a fire truck over 100 years old, the old Reformed school built in 1926—now an Integrated community and service space—and opposite it the Reformed Church. The present church was built in 1821 on the site of an 18th-century wooden prayer room and a similar coffered ceiling church to the one in Szenna, which soon collapsed. The building gained its final form in 1884.

Following the marking, we pass the carefully restored country house with a renovated well in its yard on the main street. At the end of the street on the right is the Vándor Hostel, originally built as a forester’s house at the turn of the century, later used as a district gendarmerie and prison between the two world wars. It then became a youth club, cinema, and museum storage. The Kaposvár Nature Friends Hiking Association purchased it in 1985 and converted the then dilapidated building into a 21-bed tourist house through volunteer work. An old linden tree stands in its yard, under which travelers can rest on benches.

At the street corner, we turn left and climb up a deep gravel road to the Bereknyei Hill, offering a lovely view of the surrounding hills. After some cellars and a forest patch, we reach a long meadow, through which the hiking trail’s nature trail board leads to Loboka. The origin of the name is unclear, but it is certain that locals used this path to Kardosfa. The nature trail presents the local wildlife.

Millennium Linden Alley

From here, our journey passes through a special forest community, the silver linden-beech woods typical of the Zselic region. The uniqueness lies in the European beech, favoring cooler, humid climates, forming forest associations with the silver linden characteristic of drier lowland-hilly areas. Typical undergrowth species include the Atlantic-Mediterranean spread of prickly and horse-tongue nightshade, as well as the Illyrian (Western Balkan) striped woodruff and beech-covered spleenwort. A similarly unique community is the silver linden-hornbeam-oak woods developed in cold, frost-prone valley bottoms. Soon we reach a resting place along the wide dozer road, next to which lies the Millennium Linden Alley. The memorial park was planted in 1896 on the orders of Ignác Darányi, Hungary’s Minister of Agriculture, in memory of the millennium under the leadership of chief forester Imre Sulyanszky. A total of 400 ten-year-old linden saplings were planted around the "Cserlát fold" in the pattern "18 M 96." Due to the area's troubled history, including use as a military zone during WWII, only 70 trees survive, and interpreting the composition is complicated by the size resulting from the age of the vegetation.

Kardosfa

Shortly after the memorial linden alley, we reach an asphalt forestry road passing Kardosfa-puszta. Some researchers identify the former settlement hidden in the forest with the Karan serf village granted by King Saint Ladislaus to the Pannonhalma Abbey. However, its first written mention dates only from the 18th century. Several legends circulate about the village and its name among locals. One states that once a storm felled a large tree under which swords and other metal objects were found, which were sent to the Esterházy castle—hence the name. Another links it to the bandit era, when robbers gathered under a large tree and stabbed their swords and daggers into it. Others connect it to an Árpád-era sword-making workshop that stood under a big tree.

In the mid-1700s, the first hunting lodge of Zselic was built here for the chief hunter, around which a small settlement developed later into a hunting and forestry administration center. In 1850, new lodgings and offices for forest master, chief hunter, and forest overseer were built. At that time more than 25 household members lived in 12 houses on the puszta. During the 20th century, like several other settlements, Kardosfa depopulated and only the forestry houses remained. SEFAG Rt. converted the latter into a hunting lodge from 1982 and opened the Hotel Kardosfa Ecotourism and Conference Center in spring 2006, turning the former puszta into a hospitality venue.

Following the asphalt, we soon reach a fenced area where in 2019 SEFAG Zrt. established the "Memorial Forest for the 2021 Hunting and Nature World Exhibition." The 1-hectare silver linden-hornbeam-oak forest's lindens form the pattern "2021." At the edge, there is a memorial plaque, a carved wooden pole, and a bench.

Zselic Star Park

At the intersection, we continue straight and reach the Zselic Star Park following the K▲ sign. The Zselic, covering more than 8300 hectares, together with Scotland’s Galloway Park, was the first region in Europe to receive the Dark Sky Park designation in 2009. As light pollution on Earth steadily increases, the fainter stars of the night sky are visible from fewer places. To counteract this, the International Dark-Sky Association aims to map places where the night sky can be seen without disturbing lights. In this area of Zselic, due to low light pollution, we can observe night sky details visible to the naked eye that would be impossible from a big city. The center offers programs day and night for visitors. The complex consists of a park, an observatory building, a lookout tower, and five rest stops. The building’s purpose is presenting the sky, the park, and the nature protection area, and features a 54-seat planetarium, lecture and activity rooms, telescope dome, gift shop, and exhibition space. The 25-meter-high lookout stands at the highest point in the area, accessible by spiral staircase to the top floor. From the top, on a clear day, you can see the Zselic, the Balaton Uplands’ witness hills, the Mecsek, and the Croatian Papuk mountains. The rest stops introduce Zselic’s architectural heritage, forest management, and forest and waterside habitats.

Continuing from the star park on our route, after 600 m we turn right at the K● sign. We descend through the silver linden grove of the Ropoly forest down to Dugás-well, near which is the memorial site of the Ropoly economic railway. This 22 km long narrow-gauge railway operated between 1918 and 1929, transporting wood, sand, and other forest products to the Csere sawmill. Construction began before WWI but only finished by 1918. Russian and Italian prisoners of war participated in its construction. The railway ran until 1929. Its locomotive first served on the Kaposvár sugar factory and Somogyszil collecting line, then moved to the Transport Museum. The current visible track is placed as a memorial at the former line’s terminus.

Dugás-well

A few meters from the memorial, the newly restored Dugás-well springs, one of the sources of the Ropoly ditch, which dams the Ropoly lake and then, joining the Berki creek, flows about 15 km before joining the Kapos. In the past, forest workers made barrel staves here from the surrounding oak woods, providing excellent raw material. Thirsty workers surrounded the good spring with defective staves, called plugs here, creating a dipping basin. The spring received a stone, arched enclosure in 1971 for the Hunting World Exhibition. The water outflow appears in many Somogy outlaw stories, especially those of Patkó Bandi, who actually may have been two men: some say a pair of brothers, János and István Tóth, others say István Csorba and János Bergán.

Ropoly Lake

After resting by the spring, we cross the bridge and follow the mowed path through the alder trees to the Ropoly Lake, renovated in autumn 2019. A small artificial island with a wooden pavilion accessible by footbridge was created at that time. On the far side of the lake stands a folk architecture style country house typical of Somogy (mud wall, carved porch pillar, thatched roof, shuttered door, etc.), next to which is a nature protection guard house. At the lake shore are a playground, resting spot equipped with information boards, and a bell tower. Two horse resting places and a corral support equestrian tourism.

Ropoly

Going around the lake, on the asphalt road under the chestnut rows at the forest edge, we proceed toward the Ropoly hunting lodge following the K sign. The name Ropoly may originate from a German knight named Rupel from the 10th century when a significant castle stood on the hill behind the hunting lodge. Today, atmospheric hiking trails lie in the forest reserve. At the curve, there was once the cemetery of Italian prisoners of war who worked on the railway; although the graves have been relocated, the area is still called the Italian Cemetery.

Before the hunting lodge, turning left, we follow the P sign on a forestry road. We climb up Várhegy, where remnants of Ropoly Castle can be seen in a few earthwork ditches. The sizable (520 m north-south, 140 m east-west) earth castle’s construction technique is associated with Árpád-era red-ditch castles. The red color originates from the fired clay or clay soil used in construction. Some authors believe it was applied during or after building, others suggest the ditches were burned during sieges. The castle’s military role was significant during the border system era, strengthening the defensive system of the narrowing Kapos valley near Kaposvár. Ropoly was populated around 1220 with nearly 300 "tót" people. Under King Andrew II’s reign, it was the estate of the Monoszló clan, which included the current Kaposszerdahely and had market rights. It ceased to exist due to land division in the second half of the 13th century and was succeeded by Ropolyújvár (Kaposújvár) in the following century, causing the fortress slowly to be forgotten.

Leaving the forest and walking along its edge, the view over the surrounding rolling fields is beautiful. Then we turn again into the woods and finally sharply left following the Z sign at the forest edge. Crossing the Bronze Age settlement site Kincses-dűlő, we enter Szenna.

Szenna

Located in the valley of the Deregély creek, this small village’s name was first mentioned in 1252 in the founding charter of the Szentbenedek monastery. In the 11th-12th centuries, a royal court stood here. The village was mainly inhabited by royal serfs then, later Slavs were settled here by the Pannonhalma Abbey in the 13th century. In 1500 it belonged to John Corvinus, the illegitimate son of King Matthias, then several landlords, including the Esterházy family from 1715 until the end of World War II. Due to the village’s isolation, the local folk costume was preserved here longest in the Zselic, worn by everyone until World War I.

Following our marking, after the Turul statue dedicated to national unity and the World Wars victims’ monument, we reach the tour's endpoint bus stop, behind which the village museum sign is already clearly visible.

The open-air museum

The 1.5-hectare Open-Air Ethnographic Collection aims to preserve the memory of folk architecture with post-and-beam construction found in Somogy for posterity. First, in 1975-76, houses from Rinyakovács were relocated, followed by those from Kisbajom, then Csököly, Nagykorpád, and finally the farmhouse from Somogyszob, which externally represent folk architecture after 1848 along with economic buildings. The village museum opened in 1978 and was awarded the Europa Nostra prize for heritage restorations in 1982, which has been an official European Union recognition since 2002. The museum hosts perhaps Somogy county’s most beautiful monument: the Reformed Church built in 1785 in folk baroque style with a painted coffered ceiling. The functioning church furniture was made by cabinetmaker János Nagyváti in 1787. The museum courtyard is enlivened by chickens and geese from the poultry yard and freely grazing racka sheep and lambs.