Around the legendary Szarvas-kút

Itinerary:

• We start the walk at the Z◼ mark next to Hotel Szarvaskút.
• At the forest crossing, turn right onto the Z mark.
• Next to the Zsellérek pasture, turn right along the Z↺ signs.
• At the Király creek, turn right and switch to the route marked P↺ .
• Along the Zirc-Bakonybél highway, turn left at the Z● sign, and touching Szarvas-kút, return to Szarvaskút.

Tour description:

From Szarvaskút into the forest

We start our hike on the Z◼ mark on the access road of the Szarvaskút Hotel. After a few steps, the asphalt ends under our feet, and we continue on a gravel road. The courtyard of the high-standard accommodation, which also has a restaurant, hosts the Bakonyi Producers' Market on Saturdays, where local small producers offer various delicacies and handmade products. If we arrive on a market day, we can also buy provisions here. Among other things, the sellers offer eggs, smoked meat, cheese, dairy products, honey, jam, syrup, flour, and also wine, pálinka, mushrooms, as well as forest and seasonal vegetables and fruits.

We avoid the small idyllic lake next to the building group (which we will get to know better on our return), then continue on a comfortably rising deep path through a young forest, crossing a water erosion. The old Bakony forests mostly live only in memory today; due to centuries of forestry, most of the old forests have disappeared. We cross a grassy pasture under power lines, and beyond it we step among the middle-aged mixed beech woods. Along the path, we see a marshy muddy pit, a cooling place for forest animals. Soon, we reach the northern side of Csengő Hill, 514 meters high; this is the highest point of our entire route.

We cross the next clearing and then arrive at a junction. After turning right onto the Z mark, we proceed for a while on the memorial path named after Flóris Rómer. This hiking trail winds in a large arc over 72 km in the Öreg-Bakony and its surroundings, stringing together various parts of the mountain range. The trail is named after Flóris Rómer, a Benedictine teacher who wrote the first comprehensive scientific work about Bakony in the 19th century. Besides researching the mountain range, he also traveled to many other regions of the country and was a scholar with a very broad range of interests and diverse activities. He is considered one of the founders of Hungarian archaeology, art history, and monument protection. Although we only walk 1.5 km on this section now, it is worth coming back to explore the entire trail to learn more about the mountain range.

Among small landscape mosaics

We cross a mostly dry water erosion ditch, then the mark directs us onto a narrow path. We continue along a forest section bordered by a fence; on the right is the wire fence, on the left protruding branches and leaves hinder progress. After the hospitable section, we reach the edge of a cultivated field and arrive at another junction where we turn right onto the Z↺ sign. (If we continue on the Z marks, after 600 meters a viewpoint offers a panorama of Zirc, Olaszfalu, and the edge of the Tési plateau.) Passing under hornbeams and oaks through dense undergrowth, we reach an open area by the Zsellérek pasture. The view here unfolds: behind groups of trees scattered among neat meadows appear the houses of Olaszfalu and the western edge of the Tési plateau.

We start descending, and from the bend of our path, the twin towers of the Zirc abbey church emerge in the direction of the Cuha valley. We pass under a power line, then cross the asphalt lane of the Zirc-Bakonybél road. We walk through meadows separated by forest mosaics, past hunting towers, from where we can see the hills above Eplény. At a flowering meadow, we reach a signpost, where we choose the right-turn P↺ mark, and on an open space along the marshy, swampy plain of Király creek, we pass willows and shrubs. Soon, we can study more closely a small pond covered with reeds and rushes, a special wetland habitat. Passing among tall beech trees, the uncovered area ends, and the atmosphere of the landscape changes. Due to Bakony's specific (cooler and more humid) mesoclimate, the beech wood zone extends more significantly despite the relatively low altitude. In the wooded section, we look for our path in the thickets under grayish trunks. Crossing a dense brushwood section, we reach a wide stony road where turning right, on well-passable terrain, we arrive at the previously crossed Zirc asphalt road. This time we do not cross it (unless we want to sit down for a while — on the opposite side of the road, benches and tables are built at a rest area by Szarvas-kút), but along the Z● signs, we step left back into the forest. Descending the hillside, we cross the creek ford, and walking at the forest edge, buildings belonging to Akli and agricultural areas appear.

Szarvas-kút

We cross the well-known main road, then after a short forest walk, we reach the dammed pond next to the Szarvaskút Hotel. Walking along the shore of the secluded artificial standing water, we can rest at the resting place built at Szarvas-kút’s spring with a stone tower and stone basin at the end of our hike. Many of the springs called wells in Bakony are linked to legends. In the centuries-old untouched mountain range, large herds of deer lived, attracting hunters. The story says that a hunter wounded a handsome trophy male here. However, the injured bull drank deeply from the cool, clear water, and behold: it regained its strength. The suddenly recovered noble game galloped into the thicket and escaped. The memory of this is preserved in the name Szarvas-kút, which feeds the small pond with water. Even nowadays, it happens that the forest animals come here to quench their thirst.

We cross the wooden bridge and turn left, arriving back at the parking lot and bus stop.