At the edge of the lava lake of Fekete-hegy

Itinerary

• We start from the bus stop heading out of the village on the K trail.
• After the lookout, we leave the plateau on the K▲ trail.
• At the intersection under the flat oak trees, we turn right on the K+ trail.
• A few meters later, we turn left on the K● trail (Nagy-Csere well).
• We reconnect to the K+ trail via an unmarked path.
• Reaching the Vaskapu ditch, at the valley head we sharply turn left on the KT trail of the nature trail.
• At the Bonta lake (the last lake), we switch to the S▲ trail. This trail leads back to the church of Szentbékkálla.
• We reach back to the bus stop on the main street along the K trail.

Detailed description of the route

From Szentbékkálla to the Öreg-hegyi well

We start from the bus stop heading out of the village on the K trail. After leaving the Zátói cross, we cross the bridge, and continue our way on the Szentbékkálla vineyard hill towards the plateau of Fekete-hegy. The trail suddenly turns right between the vineyards, from the end of which there is a view of the Szentbékkálla Fruit-bearing Blessed Virgin church, the Kopasz hill towering over Mindszentkálla, the Szent György hill emerging from the background, the Kőves hill saddle, and the Csobánc behind it. After the whitewashed Fatér cross, a short, slightly overgrown section awaits us. Here it is worth putting into your backpack everything that overhanging branches can tear off.

Emerging from the thicket, we cross the stream leading the water of the Öreg-hegyi well. Passing by a neat cellar and vineyard, we soon reach the Öreg-hegyi well, which was one of the main drinking water sources in the area until the last century. Many still like to visit it today. Its former role was shown by the inscription on the whitewashed basalt niche built to protect the spring: “It is forbidden to dip dirty vessels into this well! Anyone caught will be fined 5 pengő! Authority”.

From there we can see the Tepécs, Rendesi, and Örsi hills; in front of them is the Kisörspuszta sand quarry, while behind them appear the Sipos and Vár hills of Fonyód across the shore. The well is guarded by the Öreg-hegyi cross.

Up to the basalt plateau

We continue left on the road. After the estate lined with almond trees, the hill rewards us with another beautiful view extending to Fonyód and Badacsony. At the end of the tree row, we turn right. On the uppermost vineyard road, it is worth admiring the lonely old, twisted trunk almond tree standing above a small cellar on the left.

Soon we will again enjoy a beautiful panorama before entering the forest covering the top of the hill. After a left bend, we start another ascent on the slippery road in rainy weather, leading on a loam soil created from the weathering of basalt. We pass along the remains of a former collapse retaining wall. Stones of various sizes protrude from the path, sometimes making our steps harder, sometimes easier. On the climbing path, we reach the southern edge of the basalt plateau of Fekete-hegy.

The basalt hill towering between Kőveskál–Monostorapáti–Kapolcs was formed by 4 maar craters (volcanoes created by a single big explosion, their centers usually filled with lakes) that operated about 5.5–3.3 million years ago. The southernmost crater larger than 2 km is about 3.9 million years old; we continue our route along its rim.

Turning right, we reach the base of the Eötvös Károly lookout, where we can rest by tables and benches after the climb.

The Eötvös Károly Lookout

The first lookout was built from basalt in 1950 on the 369-meter-high plateau edge. In 1978, the present tower was erected from redwood timber on its place. Until the end of the 2000s, it was one floor higher but had to be renovated after a lightning strike using the remaining main beams and the top floor had to be removed. It is named after the famous lawyer, politician, publicist Dr. Eötvös Károly, who shared his experiences collected during his 1876 visit in the anecdotary and narrative collection “Journey around Balaton”, imbued with his love of the landscape.

In the canopy level lookout, a large population of dormice often feast in the evenings. The animals have gotten used to humans' presence.

Looking out from the upper floor, the Káli Basin lies below us, whose eastern boundary is the Tó-hegy rising north of Monoszló, the Hegyestű just south of it, and the Tar-hegy behind them. Heading south, the landscape slopes into Balaton, then the Pál, Bálint, and Szűcs hills close the basin's eastern side. In front of them lies Kőveskál. After the ridge KÜszÖb – Fenyős-tető – Fülöp-hegy, the lake's water surface reappears; the village Kővágóörs can be seen at the basin's bottom, east of it the Lapos hill and Kis-Hegyes peak, with the nearby sand quarry, and north of it the karst-water lake Kornyi glistens.

Continuing, we see the Tepécs and Rendesi hills, with Kékkút and Salföld in front of them; while on the southern shore of Balaton the cupolas of Sipos and Vár hill of Fonyód are visible. After the Szilvádi hill, the permian red sandstone and conglomerate block of Örsi hill rises. Beyond are the characteristic witness hills of the Tapolca Basin: Badacsony, Tóti hill, Gulács, then three pyroclastic hills of Szigliget: Antal hill, Hálás peak, and Vár hill.

Behind them, the erosion terraces of the Keszthely Mountains step up to the long, flat plateau of the mountains, whose foreground reveals the basalt caps of Szent György hill and Csobánc. Closer are Kopasz hill, Kőves hill, and Hajagos enclosing the western edge of the Káli Basin, with Mindszentkálla and Szentbékkálla in the foreground. The landscape shows a particularly beautiful face at dawn and sunset, especially if we catch the Balaton storm towering over the witness hills.

Down to the Vaskapu ditch

From the lookout to the junction of the K▲ trail, we continue on the K trail, then turn right and start a steep descent. We emerge from the forest by a cellar, then reach a gravel road where we turn left. At the next intersection, over which flat oak trees tower, we take a small detour to the Nagy-Csere well under tall poplars on the K+ trail, then a few meters later turn left on the K● trail. The beautiful layer spring arising in the shade of the trees from the Pannonian formation is protected from pollution by a vaulted spring house made of basalt.

We return to the K+ trail on the road, then continue cutting through another forest patch. Beneath the right turn of the road springs the Kis-Csere well, similarly but more modestly enclosed. Soon we reach the next intersection, where we continue left on the K+ trail leading up the Vaskapu ditch.

The Vaskapu ditch

Our path starts in the erosion valley shaded by white acacias in a steep hollow, then after about 500–600 meters it reaches the spring named after botanist Ádám Boros, or earlier the Bojtárok well, on the right side of the path. Shortly thereafter, it reaches the Juhászok well rising on the opposite valley side. The spring names also hint at the grazing practice once carried out on the hilltop. The periodically dry springs occur at the boundary of the volcanic explosion-formed pyroclastic ring's waterproof material and the basalt formed during lava flows, where rainwater seeping through the latter appears as layered springs.

Descending about 250 meters, the layered structure of the outer part of the volcanic tuff ring unfolds, partly formed by basal landslides caused by eruptions and partly by fallen pyroclasts. In the well-layered, reworked greyish-brown lapilli tuff, we also find limestone and dolomite xenoliths (inclusions) blasted from deep inside.

Later, lava fountains arose in the crater, and large gas-rich lava flows filled the pyroclastic ring but could not break out. Going upward in the washout, we find traces of this phenomenon. Here – perhaps most beautifully – basalt formed during the lava extrusions of the volcano appears. The multi-meter-thick layered series of the Vaskapu rocks shows an interesting phenomenon: the plate-like exfoliating, sometimes globular-weathering layers are generally horizontal, but at the edge of the plateau they tilt inward the hill – this is because the former lava flow pressed against the former, now eroded tuff ring surrounding the crater and cooled into solid. This unusual sight has been revealed to us by the waters rushing down from the plateau during cloudbursts and sudden snowmelts, carving a gorge-like valley into the hill's side.

A series of waterlogged lakes on the hilltop

Reaching the plateau, we turn left on the nature trail named after Ádám Boros marked KT. We pass by the Barkás lake, whose willow swamp burned down in 1992 after the drought years of the 1980s. Its vegetation has only partly recovered since the fire; peat mosses have not reappeared. The plateau has half a dozen lakes, variably water-filled, 50–100 meters in diameter, 1–2 meters deep, with an extremely small catchment area.

There is no clear explanation for their formation. They probably formed in depressions between lava flows filling the interior of the Fekete-hegy maars, where clayey weathering accumulating from the basalt formed a “lining” that gradually retained rainwater. Their supply is exclusively from precipitation, but their water is dark brownish and slightly acidic (pH 4.8-5.2) due to decomposition products and humic acids dissolved from their swampy surroundings.

Based on the depressions on the plateau surface, it is likely that there were more than 10 such lakes on the hill earlier, and that each preserved Ice Age relic vegetation: floating willow swamps. These rare, unique vegetation formations hosted many characteristic marsh species, but due to drying up, the species have become strongly rare or disappeared, replaced by more common or invasive species. Highly protected peat moss species typical of the habitat live today only in the shrinking small marsh patch of Monostori lake, like islands. Some lakes have disappeared due to climate change, while the waters of others flowed out through erosion ditches cutting the plateau edge, like the Vaskapu ditch.

When we reach Bonta lake, the westernmost lake of the hill (locally called lake position), we continue on the S▲ trail. The lake's rare protected plant is the buttercup with unequal leaves, and currently 35 protected plant species are known from the hill.

The Keleményes rock

Leaving the lake, after a black pine group we reach a wider grassland from which there are very beautiful views in several places towards the Káli and Tapolca basins, as well as the Keszthely Mountains. At the far end of the grassland, after a narrow wooded strip, near Keleményes rock we reach the western border of the former lava lake filling the maar crater of Fekete-hegy. From the steep cliff top made of plate basalt – also called strudel stone by locals – the panorama is breathtaking.

To the northeast, the Agár peak block rises with the remains of a cinder cone volcano protruding from the basalt plateau; beside it, the mound of Cseket hill rises from the plain in the background. In the foreground, the almost completely preserved tuff ring of the crater of Kopácsi hill, hiding in the western foothills of Fekete-hegy, while behind it the ridge of Sátroma hill is visible, beyond which to the south appear the scree-covered slopes of Hajagos and Kőves hills. The saddle's background is formed by Csobánc, Szent György hill, and the elongated Keszthely Mountains, whose erosion terraces extend all the way to Balaton. In front of the water surface rises Kopasz hill's basalt plateau above Mindszentkálla, on its southern side Püspök Hill does not quite hide the Szigliget volcanoes lining up behind it, followed by Gulács, Tóti hill, and Badacsony.

Back to Szentbékkálla

From the cliff, we descend through the hornbeam-oak and scree slope forests of the Bocskor-kúti ditch into the valley where the former tuff ring is almost completely erased, cleaved by the hard basalt of the lava lake. Bocskor well, like the springs of the Vaskapu ditch, is fed by precipitation falling on the hilltop. On the left side lies a temporary stream bed that occasionally exposes the pyroclastic ring, in which limestone cobbles reaching half a meter in size can be seen. The presence of this deeply seated old rock also indicates the power of the volcanic explosions.

We soon reach the asphalt mountain road where we follow the trail. About 1 km later, we spot the whitewashed cross erected in 1888 on the side of Vásár hill, notable because the crossbeam has an octagonal rather than four-sided cross-section. From here it is only 150 meters to the Fruit-bearing Blessed Virgin church; climbing its stairs under the black pines, we see two whitewashed crucifixes carved from red sandstone; one was erected in 1826, the other in 1909. Nearby stands a Holy Trinity statue.

This was the parish church of the Catholic communities of the Káli Basin, built in late Baroque style between 1790-1799 according to plans by Jakab Fellner. It was built by Károly Esterházy, archbishop of Eger. Its frescoes, showing the Benedictine monk Saint Benedict converting the people of Kál and a Kál knight, were painted by Ernő Jeges in 1953. The red sandstone holy water font probably dates from the Árpád era. The tower was completed in 1860; the 105 and 69 cm high bells inside were made in 1928 in the Budapest workshop of László Szlezák.

From the church, we continue on the K trail along Kossuth Lajos Street. On the pedestrian island at the corner of Jókai Mór Street, we reach another whitewashed cross, then passing by the Hayloft Museum, we return to the bus stop.