Among German heritage villages in Vértes

Itinerary

• We start from the Várgesztes bus stop heading south on the Arany János street following the K trail.
• At the edge of the village, we turn left following the S trail.
• At the Fáni valley, we turn right onto the Z trail.
• We walk on the Z◼ trail to Vérteskozma.
• We follow the S◼ trail until the junction with K+.
• We turn left onto the K+ trail.
• We continue straight on the K signs until Kőhányáspuszta.
• We walk on the K trail to below the castle of Várgesztes.
• We follow the KL trail up to the Gesztes Castle.
• We walk back to the center of Várgesztes on the KL and then K marked hiking trails.

Detailed description of the hike

Through the Bodzás valley

We start from the center of Várgesztes beside the pub, heading out along the main street. Behind and above the rooftops, the white silhouette of the castle wall sometimes emerges from the forest. In our direction of travel, it isn’t immediately noticeable that the village is surrounded by mountains (or rather hills based on their height), but at the last intersection, we face the forest. We turn left onto the S trail, and after leaving the outer row of houses, we finally enter the woods. Our hiking trail turns right, then begins an incline on a gently winding deep path. The Bodzás ditch is accompanied by both older and younger forest until its top where we face a clear-cut area.

We briefly follow the forest road, then the trail turns right into a small valley. The next section is one of the most atmospheric parts of the hike: in a steep but shallow ditch bottom, branches lie scattered, and dead wood on the sides makes the forest a shelter. No stream flows nowadays in this narrow valley, and like many valleys in Vértes, it is most likely the result of a former intermittent watercourse.

Under the rocks of Boglári Hill

At the bottom of the ditch, we find another forestry road avoiding clear-cutting; turning left here, we soon step onto a concrete road. We follow the sometimes perfectly straight Fillér ditch clearing road, and after a small clearing, arrive at the fork of the Fáni valley. At the junction of the two valleys, a small rock tower rises among the trees on the left, foreshadowing the varied rock formations we will encounter ahead. The legend of the Ördögszószék rock goes far back: two communities lived nearby—one in the village farming the land, the other in the forest meadow producing charcoal and lime. After choosing a priest, they couldn’t agree on who should be the judge—this dispute escalated into a fight between the two groups. Sensing the blood flowing in the streams, devils rose from hell and sat on the rock, inciting the men against each other for three days. Afterwards, the women tired of the bloodshed and drove away the devils with incense smoke, church relics, and singing.

Nowadays, at most the noise of forestry machines fills the valley under the ridge, where we turn right continuing on the Z trail. We walk nearly 1 kilometer straight, with the rocky outcrops of Boglári Hill decorating the slope on our left. A white gravel scree laps the edge of the asphalt: this is the dolomite phenomenon. At a higher point on the hillside, we see a rugged rock ridge. The well-fragmenting, crumbling rock covers the slope beneath, a slow-moving patch of debris traveling downhill, hindering the expansion of vegetation. Its light color reflects sunlight, creating a particularly warm microclimate favorable only to thermophilic plants.

Vérteskozma

We walk through a strictly protected forest when the road takes a sharp right turn. Although we may not notice due to topography, only a narrow forest strip separates us from the loose soils of the Vérteskozma loess basin, now fallow land. Shortly afterwards, we reach the access road to the settlement, where wooden gates frame a soccer field, and the landscape changes significantly: Vérteskozma stretches in a structurally formed basin partly bordered by faults between the inner and peripheral ridges of the mountain range. This area was ideal for settlement, as the loess deposited here by winds during the ice age provided excellent fertile soil, and the village easily fit on the gentle slopes.

Walking along Vérteskozma’s main street, we now hardly meet any residents (fewer than five), and the village is more a holiday home area. Its lands were once used by peasants from Csákvár and Pákozd, later becoming part of the Esterházy estate. They settled 60 German families here, many of whose characteristic white houses with long porches remain today. In 1946, the fate of the village changed drastically when the Germans were expelled and later replaced by miners following the rise of local mines, but they also did not stay long in the isolated small corner. Currently, the predominantly peace-seeking tourism conserves Vérteskozma, whose single street is traversed by the S◼ trail.

A popular saint

After the Monument to the Expelled, we switch from asphalt to a dusty dirt road, following the path of power lines and shortly arriving at the Saint Vendel memorial. As the information board tells, Vendel lived in the 6th-7th century and was interested in Christian teachings as a child, but his father preferred to entrust him to the flock. Later, he traveled to Rome, where he again had to serve as a herdsman for a master. Among his miracles is making water spring for thirsty animals, which led the master to finally release him to live as a hermit. He ended his ecclesiastical career as a Benedictine abbot, and around his hermit hut developed the town of today’s Sankt Wendel, whose great church is a pilgrimage site.

In the 18th century, among the German settlers invited to our country, this popular saint soon became known as the protector of livestock farmers, herdmen, shepherds, drovers, and swineherds. The Vérteskozma chapel was built in 1836 by the German population on the border of their pastures and the Esterházy estate. For a long time, it served as a meeting point for the residents of adjacent villages with significant German populations (Kozma, Gesztes, Somló), and although it survived World War II raging fiercely in the Vértes forests, it collapsed in 1969. Its memorial visible today was rebuilt in 2013.

Through war frontlines

Soon after, we leave the old cart road called Malom Road connecting Várgesztes and Vérteskozma and turn left onto the K+ trail. The tourist path leads through an unremarkable forest for a while, with young trees growing in old clear-cut scars. Suddenly the terrain changes as we enter beeches typical of the cool climate of northern Vértes. After passing a large forest clearing, a path bends right into the woods. A few meters away, we spot a small grave in the undergrowth: according to the marble plaque, one of the victims of the war front resting here is from the final days of the war. Fierce hand-to-hand fights took place in the forests of the mountain range.

Our path narrows to a trail and continues in a narrow, descending valley. We wind through a beautiful, dense beech forest between steep sidewalls. This atmospheric section receives almost no sunlight and is joined on both sides by short side valleys. Today’s dry valleys were cut earlier when the mountain’s wetter climate provided enough rain to soak the slopes. The Blue Trail (Kéktúra) joins from the right (we will return here later), and we continue walking toward nearby Kőhányáspuszta. Exiting the forest, we reach a sun-exposed meadow where we cross under a high-voltage power line and then cross the busy Csákvár-Oroszlány road. The valley, sunken along fault lines due to tectonic forces, separates the eastern and western parts of Vértes. At the power lines, turning back, we can see its nearly straight, sharply dropping wall.

Kőhányáspuszta

The narrow ditch has served as a passage in the middle of the mountains since Roman times. In the 18th century, nearly seventy farmers and forest workers lived in Kőhányás. The chapel carrying the name of the estate owners was built along the road connecting the two important Esterházy centers, Majk and Csákvár, in 1898—today we see it renovated. There is no village here anymore, only a handful of residents, and the houses are mainly used by tourists.

Back to the heights

Turning back, we follow the K trail again, crossing the asphalt and the path of the power lines, soon leaving our previous route in the forest as we turn left onto the Blue Trail. We ascend along a long valley on a heavily carved and used forestry extraction path, covered with fallen wood debris from wind damage at the forest floor. Instead of wilderness, the Vértes is more an intensively used, pleasant economic forest—hence it is not surprising that at the summit, clear-cutting again opens a slice, allowing sunlight in. We cross the ridge and descend in familiar surroundings back toward Várgesztes.

The Gesztes Castle

We are no longer far from the village, but one of the most memorable sections of the hike awaits: the K signs invite us to turn right and leave the wheel tracks. We tread a stony bottom, in a particularly narrow valley that still fills after heavy rainfall. The intermittent stream has scattered tree branches and washed out the bedrock. At the end of the beautiful forest path, we reach below Gesztes Castle, where the KL sign leads to the castle wall through the spacious Vár-rét clearing.

There is a fence between us and the village, but even so, we can get a close look at the simply laid out building. The fortress, which protected the holdings of the Csák clan, was later seized by Charles Robert, who feared the family supporting it might pose a threat to his power. King Louis I demolished it in the mid-1300s and built a hunting castle in its place because he greatly liked the surrounding, game-rich woods. After further ownership changes, the decaying castle stones were used with the approval of Count József Esterházy for the buildings of hermitages of the Kamalduli monks of Majk.

In the 20th century, the dilapidated building functioned twice as a tourist hostel but was declared dangerous in 2014 and is not open to visitors today. Returning to the Blue Trail or descending towards the village on a steep path, we soon arrive back at Várgesztes. The path follows the outer street under the houses and just where we started hours ago, we now head to the center. Within minutes, we can stand at the bus stop.