Beautiful view: the Buda mountain lake route

Itinerary

• From the Budaörs, Kisfaludy Street bus stop (lines 240, 88), we start on Kisfaludy Street along the P trail towards Odvas-hegy.
• The first detour comes quickly: a small path branches off to the right, passing through an old quarry we can go up to the top of Kő-hegy and back the same way.
• About 500 meters further on the P trail, a nature trail branches off to the left into Odvas-hegy. The summit is roughly one kilometer away, and the same way leads back.
• We continue on the P trail to Nagykovácsi, where the 63 bus stop awaits us.

Detailed description of the route

We start on Kisfaludy Street along the P trail towards the mountains. Right at the beginning, we take a detour to Kő-hegy, which offers a very nice view of the southern part of Budapest from the top.

Kő-hegy is 235 meters high, exactly the same height as Gellért Hill. Its rock is dolomite, with wind-, rain- and ice-formed stones topped with caves. On one dolomite rock about 3 meters high stands the Kőhegyi Cross, first erected in 1895; its predecessor was simply taken to the MEH in 1950. It was re-erected in 1995. Next to it stands a chapel and a Holy Trinity statue. The top of Kő-hegy means roughly a 1-kilometer loop from Budai Piros.

The same can be said for the Odvas-hegy bend starting about 500 meters further along the P trail, accessible by climbing up Budakeszi Street hill. On the summit, southeast right in front of us stretches the barren ridge of Kő-hegy, beyond it the Tétényi Plateau, Gazdagrét and houses of Kelenföld; southwest is the steep rocky wall of Törökugrató with the M1-M7 highway stripe behind it; northwest appear the successive elevations of the Csíki Hills range.

From the mysterious caves to the pilgrimage site

A steep slope must be descended back to the hiking trail. This continues northward towards the saddle between Farkas Hill and Budaörs Hill, where the first Piktortégla cave is reached.

The Piktortégla caves are partly collapsed galleries from which, from the end of the 1800s, local mining families extracted white clay to produce brick-shaped pieces called piktortégla or painter’s bricks. The activity ceased in 1950, but piktortégla can still be bought today. It must be crushed and dissolved in warm water before mixing into paint, as it increases coverage.

From the caves, we continue north. Passing along the side of Budaörs Hill, we cross the administrative boundary of Budapest and then pass 200 meters from the fence of the Central Physical Research Institute (KFKI). On this stretch, alone by the road, stands the 6-meter high St. Michael Rock, also called Végvári Rock. Its limestone was impregnated with silica acid from former thermal waters, making it resistant and preventing erosion like that of its surroundings.

We pass Budakeszi at the Makkosi Meadow, also called Makkosmária. Maria Eichel, Magyarized as Makkosmária or Máriamakk: In 1731, a seventeen-year-old boy had a vision in the forest near Budakeszi. The face of the suffering Christ appeared to him on an oak tree. The following year, very ill, he vowed to hang a holy picture there if healed. He recovered and fulfilled the promise made in prayer. The miraculous oak ("makk" = acorn) became famous and soon attracted crowds. In 1748, the landowners decided to entrust the care of the increasingly popular pilgrimage site to the Trinitarian order.

Only one lake remains in the area

From Makkosmária, we follow the city border for some time, then gradually move away in the direction of János Hill. Crossing the Children's Railway tracks, we climb roughly 500 meters on a gentle incline before reaching one of the most interesting points of the route, the Frog Lake.

Frog Lake is the largest natural surface lake in the Buda Hills. In the 1950s, there were several similar, mountain lake-like formations in the Buda Hills, such as Istenszeme Lake or the unnamed pond under the Disznófő spring. In the 1960s, the springs feeding the lakes were connected to the sewer system, so most disappeared. Frog Lake owes its survival to the clay-rich bed, which prevents water from seeping away. It is home to many frogs, freshwater snails, and according to the Budapest Lexicon, dragonflies often seen at Normafa hatch here.

After a slightly steeper section, we reach a refreshment point at the Chairlift buffet. From here, we hike up to the János Hill lookout, where there is also a water supply and a buffet. The Elizabeth Lookout stands at Budapest's highest point, 527 meters above sea level. The stone tower was completed in 1910 and named after Franz Joseph's wife, Sissi, who visited the hill in 1882. The tower is 23.5 meters high, and 100 steps lead to the top level.

Who was the beautiful shepherdess?

After the lookout, we descend along the hillside to the Szépjuhászné, located at the highest point of Budakeszi Road, between János Hill and Nagy-Hárs Hill in the so-called Budakeszi valley, at 350 meters elevation. (Between 1945 and 1992, it was called Ságvári Grove.) Legend has it that King Matthias met a beautiful shepherdess here. (Ahem, ahem, let's leave the rest to the haze of oblivion!) Since the mid-18th century, this popular excursion spot was home to the Szép Juhászné inn, operated by János Pavianovics, from which the place's name derives.

The P trail does not lead up to the Hárs Hill lookout but skirts around the western side of the hill, crossing the Kis-Ördög trench below, before tackling the mountain called Fekete-fej (Black Head, 386 m). After some wooded and meadow sections, near Adyliget, we leave the city's administrative territory again and head towards Nagy-Kopasz along the long, slowly rising ridge of Vörös-pocsolyás-hát, where nicely named humps follow each other, like Kecske-hát (453 m) or Vörös-pocsolyás-hát's own hump (493 m).

This latter name-giving feature is a natural phenomenon marked on the map as Vörös-pocsolya (Red puddle). The clayey puddle is liked by animals, especially wild boars, who often completely wallow it up. After the wild boars' bath, we begin a slow descent towards Nagykovácsi, which we shortly reach.