Basalt tales from Badacsony

Itiner

• Take the K▲ sign through the residential area.
• From Rózsa-kone, take the P signpost to the east.
• After 700 m, turn right and continue on the P● sign.
• When you reach the P sign again, it is worth taking a detour to the left to the Tomaj mine. When the sign turns left after 300 m, we continue straight ahead on the unmarked path under the mine wall.
• Return to the P sign and continue northwards.
• Climb up the Bujdosos stairs to the K sign.
• At Czinka's Panna resting place, detour on K▲ to the viewpoint at Tördemic.
• Return to the K sign.
• After a few metres, after passing the Henrietta Maria monument, turn left at the junction with the S sign.
• At the valley of the stone gate, rejoin the K sign.
• After a few metres, take a short detour on the S▲ sign above the quarry of the fragments.
• Follow the K sign towards the top of the slag cone.
• On the K▲ sign, turn left to reach the Kisfaludy Lookout, then follow the sign down to Badacsony.

More details about the tour

Up above the vineyards

If you walk down from the railway station to the harbour on the K sign, you can enjoy the beautiful view from the pier: to the east of the Badacsony block, the more than 250 million-year-old ridges of the Örsi and Csönge mountains rise up, followed by the FüFü Fü löp-Hegy and Küszöb-orra rise above the lake, behind them the Tihany peninsula extends into Lake Balaton. You can see almost the entire length of the southern shore, from which the panoramic mountains of Fonyód stand out. On the side of Vár hill you can also see the "loess wall", which is actually the stratum of the once undulating Lake Pannon, only the upper, very short section of which is covered by loess.

Take the K▲ sign towards the mountain. At the corner of Park Street is the spectacular bottling house and bistro of the Flat Estate, the Mermaid, with its charmingThe 18 m2 Mermaid, made by Éva Kumpost in 1965 and consisting of 252 high-fired glazed ceramic tiles, is a charming piece of art. with 252 pieces of painted, 252 pieces of painted, 252 pieces of painted, 252 pieces of painted, 252 pieces. The mermaid, the fish of the lake, the sun and the goat (in this case a ram's horn) who teaches mankind to prune are gathered in athe atmosphere of the settlement (part of the settlement) called Mermaid between 1910 and 1949. But what do mermaids have to do with Badacsony? Tradition has it that the lord of the Badacsony volcano once fell in love with a beautiful girl and that she appeared to him at his invitation. That's when he discovered that his beloved was a mermaid. She threw herself into the lake and that's how the volcano was extinguished, and Badacsony was named Mermaid. The building has been a restaurant since the end of the 19th century, and in 1883 a hotel was opened. It took on its present form in 1963.

The former Poharazó stands across the street. Ferenc Callmeyer's brilliantly designed basalt stone building is now home to the Pláne Badacsony wine terrace.where you can taste selected wines and excellent coffee from the Badacsony wine region all year round.

Turn left along the Roman road with its evocative name, and you will find yourself walking through the famous vineyards of the mountain. The tradition goes back to the emperor Probus (ca. 232-282), but in fact it may have been cultivated long before that by the Celts. The monumental two-faced head sculpture of Badacsonylábdihegy from the La Téne culture is an important find of the ethnographic group.

After 500 m, turn right. From here, the road starts to get really winding. As you pass the Szeremley Wine House and Restaurant, you again get a view of Lake Balaton, and then a sign indicating the end of the road.Following our signposts, we come to the Róza Szegedy House and the Kisfaludy House on the other side of the road. The former houses a literary and wine museum, and the famous Badacsony ürmös wine. The two iconic jegenye poplars below were cut down in 2018. Károly Makk, Kossuth Prize-winning film director, directed House under the Rocks, based on the work of Sándor Tatay, and filmed several scenes of Ede Szigligeti's drama Liliomfi on Badacsony. Several scenes of the latter were shot in the House of Róza Szegedy in 1954. Her husband, Sándor Kisfaludy, an imperial officer and bodyguard and the most renowned poet of his time, had an 18th century Baroque-style press house, which today houses a restaurant. The Kisfaludy Spring flows in its wake.

Passing the car park, the Rózsa Stone is only a few metres away, from where you can enjoy another view of Fonyód. According to tradition, Sándor Kisfaludy and his sweetheart used to sit on the heart-shaped stone block. If a girl and a boy sit on the stone with their backs to Lake Balaton, holding hands, they will become husband and wife that same year. Not far from the stone, at the edge of the forest, stands the Badacsony Sun Crown Memorial, created in 2014.

Geological structure of the mountain

The lower sloping sides of the 438 m high Badacsony are composed of Upper Pannonian sands and sandy clay layers up to an altitude of about 300 m. The famous Badacsony vineyards are found here, above which there are huge basalt columns, known as 'basalt columns'. bounded by volcanic rocks and lava flows of volcanic origin.layers of pyroclastite and mainly basalt. The latter were formed in four eruptive stages. The pannonic rocks, which are composed of sandstones, feldspars and clayey marls with very good water-bearing capacity, areThe shallow marine limestone of Miocene age, capable of storing large quantities of karst water, is deposited (at shallow depths) beneath the Pannonian sediment. When the karst water here was reached by upwelling magma, phreatomagma (a water-magma encounter) explosions occurred. The material from the underlying torrent flows and debris scattering around the vent formed a shallow ring of pyroclastite, which is about. 5 m thick under the basalt, but is now largely degraded and covered by huge slope debris at the base of the basalt columns. As water supplies have diminished or ceased over time, magmatic explosive eruptions have occurred in theand lava fireworks built slag and lava spatter cones in the tuff ring.Later on, so-called. Hawaii-type lava-casting operations, in which a sudden release of gas bubbles from molten rock, which bursts out of thelava fountains and curtains of lava overturned the surface of the lava lake in the tuff ring. This was followed for a short time by magmatic explosions. Stromboli-type eruptions, which built a red-coloured slag cone on top of Badacsony. The reddish-brown, gas-rich, blister-shaped basalt, with its high iron content, was deposited in the north of the mountainIt is also found in the vicinity of the lookout, but also extends down to the tops of the two mines. Since the physical properties of this rock are significantly inferior to those of grey, compacted basalt, it was considered barren-stack for mining purposes. The removal of this thick layer of rock (15-30 m at Badacsonytomaj and half of the mine wall in places at Badacsonytördemic) is very difficult.and transporting it was a major cost for the mining company.

Its degradation started immediately after the mountain was formed. During its life, sandstorms from the semi-desert environment carried the volcanic debris around it andand the Pannonian assemblage, and where glacial frosts cleaved away small and large blocks of the former lava basalt body.and finally formed the iconic coffin-shaped witness mountain that we see today, a reminder of the formerThis testifies to the height of the ancient mound onto which the lava once spilled, protecting it from erosion.

Around the edge of the mountain

Heading east, you climb gently at first, then up basalt steps on the Kuruc Circuit, which follows the P sign around the summit. This tourist route was built by the Zala County in 1894, and in 1953 it was built to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the outbreak of the Rákóczi War of Independence. The route was named after the Rákákóczi Circuit in 1848. Following our signal, it was named after the village of. After about 300 m, turn right and continue under the slope until you reach a black pine forest near the mine.You will find flowering ash among the indigenous tree species and a few seedlings of stoloneless oak.

After about 700 m, turn right and follow the P● sign. On the path, which is broken up in places, you will come to the S sign (approx. After 300 m to the chapel of St. Stephen), you reach the small rest area at the spring, where you will find the Klastrom well, which was built by the Badacsony Basalt Mine Ltd. in 1927. One of the first eight Pauline monasteries once stood next to it. The building called St. Imre certainly existed in 1263, and its foundation dates back to the 13th century. It dates back to the first half of the 13th century, but neither its founder nor the date of its foundation is known. According to a late 19th-century survey by Ivan Adám, there may have been two separate eastern parts of the building. He found, among other things, the remains of the former sanctuary and the smaller nave, as well as the sites of tombs or crypts. Rudolf Fehérváry and Tamás Guzsik reported in 1977 that the ruins had been completely destroyed. The monastery was probably destroyed during the first period of the Turkish destruction. Today, an open-air shrine stands on the site of the former monastery. A small chapel was built behind the basalt altar, hidden under small-leaved linden trees, by the reign of Emperor George II. It contains a full-length painting by the artist Erzsébet Udvardi. The resting place was built by Bakonyerdő Zrt. in 2006.

The mine of Tomaj

When you reach the P sign again, it is worth turning right and detouring to the Tomaj mine. When the signpost turns left after 300 m, we continue straight ahead along the unmarked path, passing a crumbling agglomerate rock. The boulder was formed by the volcanic erosion of slaggy basalt fragments by the volcano during the flight of the volcano.and landed, forming this interesting rock. We follow the road to a black pine forest, through which a narrow path leads to the 750 m long, 70-80 m high mine wall of the Tomaj mining yard. The dense fabric of the layered-padassic principle, which forms the main mass of the Badacsony truncated basalt cone, is aThe only green crystals visible to the naked eye in the layered, textured basalt of Badacsony are green crystals of the mineral olivine. This high-quality, plane-cut rock is a first-rate material for carving cubes.

The quarrying of road building stone on the mountain above Badacsonytomaj started around 1900, and in 1905 the quarry was opened for the first time.The Freund family, who had made a fortune from their brewery in Steinbach, founded the Badacsony Basalt Quarry Ltd. The mined stone was transported on a 1,630 m long wire ropeway to the crushing plant near the Badacsonytomaj railway station.from where it was later transported by train and by water from the town's freight harbour. The first major mine was opened at an altitude of 270 m, where the material from the huge slope slopes up to the village boundary was extracted.But it was soon proved that the Pannonian alluvium was still present under the rubble, so a new mine was opened at 302 m, at the Klastrom well. Within a few years, however, the Pannonian strata were also reached here, and the now permanent mining village was installed at 315 m. The stone was lowered by skid-steel to the old cableway haulage station at 302 m.

Most of the country's basalt cubes were produced here in the 1930s. During the Second World War, the mine was declared a war factory, where, among other things, conscripts were employed. After the rebuilding of the site, which was bombed in 1944, nearly 600 people worked here and in the mine at Tredemic in two shifts. At Tomaj, basalt was produced by blasting until 1950, when it took two years to 'clean up' the mining yard. In the spring of 1949, a new, closely guarded work camp was set up in the quarry, which was to operate for 5 years.The prisoners, who were mainly political prisoners, farmers classified as kulaks and small conscripts. They were crammed into an L-shaped building with a flat roof. The Tomaj plant was relocated to the mine in Tördemic between 1950 and 1953. In some parts of the mine wall, not 70 years after its closure, you can already see the beginnings of half-removed basalt pillars or stone bags. Protected and highly protected birds nest in inaccessible parts of the wall, so do not visit the area during the breeding season.

The quarry at tördemic

Returning to the P sign, you will see the mossy, sweet-root ferns and the fern under the stone gate.and forest shields, and continue through the rubble, now under the mine of Tördemic. On the right side of the road there are several good viewpoints with panoramic views towards the neighbouring St George's Hill.

After 700 m, you arrive at the entrance to the Tördemic mine. The mining yard was originally located at an altitude of 350 m, where 500 m of the mountain's material was produced by a 50-55 m high mine wall. Between 1950 and 1953, as part of the relocation of the Tomaj section, it was straightened and extended to a length of over 2 km.This enabled the extracted stone to be transported from the mine to Badacsonytomaj. In 1964, as the mine level deepened, a height of 312 m was reached here too. In the excavated area, it is easy to see how the barren slaggy basalt is deposited on the mined basalt of the Pados type. Lajos Jugovics played a key role in the closure of the mine, with the help of hisand the strong social protest and indignation, of which one of the leaders was theFerenc Herceg, a writer, was one of the leading figures in the protests and protests, and thanks to his efforts, the mine was closed in 1964.and a year later Badacson was declared a protected landscape area.In nearly 60 years, 12 million tonnes of stone were extracted from the two areas. Unfortunately, the mine was eventually abandoned at the western end of the Tátika basalt group in the Kováof the Ková csi mountain, a huge area of basaltic rock, which isThis caused huge and irreparable damage, including to the mountain's inland lakes, such as the Wild Lake, which has endemic algal vegetation but was completely dried up by the blasting. Why so much basalt? Much of it was taken up by the booming railway construction at the beginning of the last century, such as the construction of the Balaton and the Balaton railway line.but also for many other public and private roads, using both crushed stone and basalt blocks.

Returning to our pleasant level route, we pass new viewpoints. After a staircase through mixed acacia woods, we turn left to reach the tourist house in Rodosto, and then the Bujdosos stairs, where the K sign leads.

Up the Bujdosos stairs

Going around the tourist house, we climb the 464-degree staircase of the Bujdososos (Bujdososos Staircase), which was built in 1935 as part of the Rákóczi Memorial Year.The staircase leads to a 464.5 m high slope, through a beautiful landscape of slope fragments and basalt columns and stone sacks. The suffocating climb is punctuated by well-constructed rest stops named after prominent figures of the Kuruc era. Not far from one of them is the 4 m long Rodostó cave, of outcrop origin. As the Badacsony plateau is a highly protected natural area, it is forbidden to leave the marked tourist path! It is not allowed to visit the cave or the 25 or so other caves hiding between the basalt towers.

According to legend, the last táltosa of the old Hungarian god hid from his persecutors in these caves. When he was very old, he decided to leave Badacsony and the western grassland. He set off across the ice of Lake Balaton. When the watchman of the abbey of Tihany saw him, he shouted loudly, "There goes the tallis! Mr Gerhard from Veszprém is paying a bounty for him!" The armoured soldiers who immediately gave chase almost caught up with the old man, but he didn't even look back. He knew his fate was in God's hands, not man's. Suddenly the ice broke from shore to shore behind him, and his pursuers could not catch him. Fishermen gave him shelter that day, but he had to continue east until he reached the mountains of Transylvania. Here he collapsed in fatigue and woke up in the hut of a woman who could see. He stayed with the rima woman until spring, then went on to Szeklerland and spent the last year of his life up in the mountains. When he felt that the time had come for him, he chose the best of the Szeklers, with whom he went up the highest mountain. There the old troll gave him a sword made of tanned leather: The sword of God, guarded since the time of Prince Géza. The Székely took the sword, and the old man said to him, "The sword of God will shine again, and lead the Huns and Hungarians to victory again, when they are one again, as in the old days: One will, one purpose, one will, one deed, according to the command of the Old God."Since then, once a year a Szekler goes up to their highest mountain to clean the sword.

At the resting place of Czinka Panna, there is also a rain house. From here, it is worth making a short detour on the K▲ sign to the Tördemic lookout point, from where you can see Badacsonytördemic, the Szent György Hill, and to the left in the distance the Vár Hill in Sümeg and the Kecskevár. At the lookout point, benches make for a comfortable rest. We return to the K sign and continue along it along the rim of the plateau of the basalt-capped hill. Through the secondary forest, you will soon reach the path of Queen Maria Henrietta of Belgium 1887. From here you will soon reach the stone tablet commemorating her stay here in 1887, overlooking the Bay of Szigligeti. The canopy of the trees allows us to see only the southern end of Szigliget, where the watchtower once stood above the Queen's skirtbehind which the abrupt terraces of the Keszthely Hills stretch down to Lake Balaton. On the lower Garga Hill, the Bél Mátyás Lookout can be seen, and on the Pap Hill, the Batsányi Lookout, with Balatongyörök visible below.

After a few metres, turn left at the fork of the S sign.Crossing the plateau of the mountain, you reach the edge of the Kőkapu valley, where you join the K sign. A few metres further on, the path S▲ leads off to the left at the corner of the Tördemic mine, above the imposing basalt columns of the Stone Gate. From here you have a beautiful view of the Kőkapu, the Örsi-Hill behind it and Lake Balaton, from where the panorama stretches all the way to the Keszthely Hills.

Return to the K sign and climb up to the peak of the mountain and turn left on the K▲ sign to the Kisfaludy Lookout.

At the top of Badacsony

The 18 m high tower on the 438 m high peak, facing the sky, was built in 2011 and designed by Szabolcs Kőmíves. Ground floor + 3 storeys, its spectacular, twisted structure is due to the unitary rotation of octagonal, membrane-like girder grid slabs. Its structure is made of steel and pine, with a spiral staircase leading up to the observation deck. The almost panoramic view from here is interrupted only by a small stretch of the Badacsony forest to the south-west. Photographs of the surrounding mountains are shown on signs fixed to the parapet.

Back to the Rózsa Stone

After having had a good time, we descend back on the K▲ sign. At the stone hut, turn left and descend through a gentle ancient valley, which has such a small but beautiful valley.This slope is so steep because it could not cut back in the hard, dad-blasted basalt below. As the terrain steepens, basalt steps help you to take steady steps.Soon you arrive at the Hertelendy monument and the adjacent viewpoint called the Lodge. Ferenc Hertelendy was a member of the House of Lords, Archbishop of Zala and later of Timis, president and vice-president of several organisations. He used his political connections to make an invaluable contribution to the development of tourism on the northern shore of the lake.of the lake, most notably by encouraging the construction of a railway line. Although the Lodge is about 40 m below the edge of the plateau, its name is no coincidence. To the east, almost the entire northern shore of Lake Balaton can be seen from here. Below us lies Badacsonytomaj, then the Örsi and Csönge hills, beyond them the Fülöp hill, the nose of the Küszöb and then the watery shape of the Tihany peninsula.

From here, you will soon reach the Rózsa rock, from where you return to the Badacsony pier by the same route you took on the way here.