Bakonybél – Zirc (OKT 19th day tour)

Bakonybél is barely affected, the Blue Trail quickly crosses its northern end. Most sights are concentrated at the southern end of the village, where the Pannon Starry Sky Observatory, the monastery founded by Saint Stephen, the House of Forests and the Holy Spring are located – therefore it is worth spending more time, at least one day, in the settlement; the accommodation and hospitality offerings are abundant and varied.

The stamp can be found at the starting point, next to the bus turnaround, on the National Blue Trail sign. Leaving the village towards the east, we face a serious challenge, as Bakonybél lies among the highest mountain group of the range, the Magas-Bakony (or Old Bakony) mountains, and the K mark leads exactly to the main summit, Kőris-hegy.

Initially, we follow the narrow valley of the Száraz-Gerence on an asphalt road. Shortly after the edge of the village, before the bridge over the stream, we can turn right to visit the Erzsébet Lookout with about a 2x500-meter detour, offering views of Bakonybél. On the karst terrain, the stream with a disappearing and variable water flow according to its name, is a tributary of the Gerence, the largest watershed stream of Bakony. The forestry road lined with canopy tunnels and clearings has a pleasant atmosphere, but soon the ascent of Kőris-hegy interrupts the leisurely walk, dominating the next approximately one and a half hours.

The uphill route is relatively predictable: initially, we ascend on a path beside a water erosion ditch, then proceed alternately on forest tracks, winding asphalt road uphill, or narrower paths – however, there are few breaks in the ascent. The landscape is not particularly diverse; mostly, we walk through hornbeam-oak woods, interspersed with sunny patches created by clear-cut forest areas and young growth in places. The terrain briefly flattens at the Eleven-förtés saddle – where the name indicates a swampy, lively wet habitat due to poor drainage.

At the highest point, the forest appears more natural, and the namesake ash trees appear, but finally, using the connecting road, we reach beneath the summit, then on a path to a small clearing surrounding the lookout.

The point, equipped with benches and tables, at 709 m high, is the highest summit of Bakony. Therefore, a lookout tower was built here as early as 1920, rebuilt in 1962. It has since been renovated, but by the mid-2020s, the wooden tower named after Péter Vajda, a writer, poet, and naturalist, is in a weathered condition. Climbing the stairs, a dual view greets us: toward the nearby radar, a wire fence disturbs the panorama, but through the grids, the Balaton Uplands and the easily recognizable Somló and Kab hills are visible. In the other direction, behind the hills of Sokoró, the city of Győr and the heavily forested, undulating plateau of Bakony can be seen.

Kőris-hegy – Borzavár

The stamp can be found on one leg of the tower. We descend from the summit on the most beautiful forest section of the entire Bakony Blue Trail. The path, later a forestry dirt road meandering through hornbeam-oak woods, is covered by a green carpet under tall, straight-trunked trees; reaching the edge of the hill, we have a view among them toward the pastures of Szépalmapuszta. According to a sign, due to the fungus spreading that kills ash trees, the forest had to be partially harvested – consequently, the lookout also opened up.

We pass over young growth to one of the meadows of Kisszépalmapuszta, where a rest area equipped with a rain shelter is situated. From here, we continue on an asphalt road meeting opposite, then turning off onto a dark forest path until finally threading a meadow and arriving at one of the most beautiful points of Bakony, the idyllic Szépalmapuszta. The pasture divided by corrals lies below the highest mountains, thus extending among particularly pleasant “decorations”, where rescued horses frolic on gently sloping meadows.

Looking back, above the slopes, we see the block of Kőris-hegy before the Blue Trail turns right toward the hotel building. The slightly English manorial atmosphere is enhanced by the arboretum established at the beginning of the 20th century, where we can see atlas cedar and giant sequoia, and also visit the graves of famous horses.

Szépalmapuszta was initially the orchard of Bálint Török, then in the 17th century fell to the Esterházy family, who started horse breeding here. An interesting episode in its history is that in 1862, Móric Esterházy, György Apponyi, György Majláth, and Ferenc Deák secretly met here to discuss the possibilities of the later Austro-Hungarian Compromise. The land came to Count Endre Pejacsevich from the Esterházys, who established the arboretum, and his son Pál is buried in the nearby cemetery. From the 1960s, the estate became part of the Bábolna State Farm, and in the mid-1990s in dilapidated condition, it was acquired by a Swiss owner – after which the hotel opened and acquired its current “farm” form.

The Blue Trail bypasses the hotel building, and we walk into Borzavár along asphalt (briefly amidst the trees) with a gentle descent. Turning right on the main street, we can choose between two stamps: one on the fence beyond the grocery store on the right side, the other hanging at the entrance of the press on the opposite side.

Borzavár – Zirc

"Borza" used to mean elderberry around here, but the inhabitants mostly earned their living by coal and lime burning, broom making, and wood carving, and ethnically, alongside Hungarians, Germans and Slovaks (settled by Esterházy counts) lived here. On the nearby Church Hill, they quarried the pinkish limestone used to decorate many buildings in the surrounding area.

The Blue Trail leads along the street to the end of the village, again descending near the stream previously followed. Though the road climbing to the opposite hill is tempting, the K mark turns right, crossing thicket meadows beside the trail. We pass former lime kilns before beginning the climb. Crossing the low clods near Zirc, initially, the many young forest patches prevent us from noticing, but we are already on the edge of the city's park forest.

Arriving at Pintér-ditch, the forest image changes; we enter beautiful, dark beech woods, though a long section crossing young growth still separates us from Zirc’s park forest beechwoods. The local favorite and well-developed hiking area is signposted by a rain shelter on the left beside the forestry road. A plethora of educational trails and resting points enrich the dense, atmospheric beech forest, and we cross an old ski slope clearing – although no longer indicating its former use. Passing a small rain shelter, we descend on stairs and arrive in Zirc. The stamp is found to the left on the Blue Trail sign. Although no mining took place here, a stylized mine headframe set up across the meadow recalls the Bakony’s stone, coal, and bauxite mines.

From here, we walk through the "capital of Bakony" on streets, where there are plenty of shops and dining options, but the most important is the Cistercian Abbey, which the K marks also lead to. The monastery was founded at the end of the 12th century and later destroyed by the Turks. The city was resettled with Germans in the 18th century, when the current church and monastery were built. It houses the Bakony Natural Science Museum and the Reguly Antal Memorial Library, and next to the abbey, the order-established Zirc Arboretum with nearly 600 tree and shrub species.

The section ends at the junction before the railway station, where the stamp is located at the station building's track-side entrance, at the end of the blue seal mark.