Excursion to Veszprém's Gulya Hill

Itinerary

• From Patak Square, turning towards the castle, we climb the stairs up to the Saint Benedict Hill Cross, then return along the same route.
• We head towards the zoo following the P marker.
• We follow the P marker until it sharply turns left at the edge of the Gulya Hill, then the P▲ marker branches off straight from it.
• We walk along the P▲ marker to the Queen Gizella lookout.
• After crossing under the lookout, we continue our path behind it on an unmarked trail that leads into a straight forest road. We head right on this road.
• We join a wide promenade, heading left on it.
• At the first junction, we turn left off the promenade and walk along the path next to the zoo fence.
• At the zoo fence, we turn left.
• We reconnect with the P marker, which we briefly follow to the right, then turn left and descend the Rovaniemi stairs next to the Séd stream.
• Along the Séd, we turn right at the Betekints Valley.
• We rejoin the P marker, which leads back to the starting point of the route.

Detailed description of the route

Rock in the middle of the city

The first stage of our walk leads to Benedek Hill, which at first glance appears as a steep ridge of the Castle Hill. It is bordered by prominent dolomite walls, an astonishing natural sight within the city’s built environment. To visit it, we briefly follow the Z marker that calls us into a side street, which then becomes a stretched staircase heading right. The atmospheric natural stone elements and the historic-style lampposts suggest we are in Veszprém's historic city core.

According to the chronicle of Anonymus, the conquering Hungarians took today's Castle Hill by siege, and archaeological finds indicate the area may have been inhabited for 6,000 years. It is no surprise: the Séd stream cutting across the dolomite terrain carved increasingly deep valleys, shaping easily defensible rocky outcrops. The sharp erosion forms typical of dolomite define the partly natural riverbanks of the stream. Despite the city’s expansion, the skyward rock faces remain visible in several places. On the hilltop, a promenade stretches to the Saint Benedict Cross, where a watchtower was erected after the 17th-century Veszprém fire. Later it served as a crypt, then completely disappeared and was only uncovered in the early 20th century. (The excavated spoil was used to fill the depression between Benedek Hill and Castle Hill.)

The ridge’s name honors the Benedictine order missionaries, though some sources claim a chapel stood there in the 13th century on the small plateau. Over the centuries, it has seen much: used as pasture, shooting range, planted with pines, mentioned by Cholnoky as the Suicide Rock, and nearly every traveler noted the view defining the city's skyline.

Yet the interior of the hill is also extraordinary; in 1944, an air-raid shelter with a capacity for 200 people was dug in. The city's most important bunker is located under the neighboring Castle Hill in the “Rock” institution. The concrete bunker was completed by 1938, and near the end of 1944, the government led by Szálasi temporarily hid the Holy Right Hand, the crown jewels, and the entire National Bank’s 30-ton gold reserve there. The tunnel system, capable of housing 4,000 people, later functioned as a hospital and then was transformed into an air defense center. Thanks to later developments, it is reportedly resistant to a nuclear attack, and today the Hungarian Defense Forces monitor the entire country's airspace from here.

Walking to the edge of the rock, we can look around Veszprém: down left, the Saint Catherine Monastery – the home of Augustinian nuns and the childhood place of Saint Margaret – rises. At the foot of the dolomite ridge runs the Séd, responsible for shaping the landscape, while in the background the Bakony hills dome, crowned by the Papod lookout tower. Opposite is the castle district, and right next to it, the less noble socialist downtown. Despite the built-up area, the valley relief shaped by the Séd remains striking. To the southwest, closer by, the wooded back of Gulya Hill greets us, with sparse rocky grasslands emerging here and there.

Let’s return to Patak Square, where we must turn right and cross to the other side of the stream.

The city's visitor, the Séd

Here, the P marker turns left onto the promenade along the banks of the Séd. Willows and pines shade the sidewalk next to the swiftly flowing stream – originally the name referred to streams active only after heavy rains. (The rapid flow inspired the expression through its sound.) Around Lake Balaton, this name appears where water levels of streams (whether trickling or dried up) are influenced by variable rainfall and the Bakony karst region: much of the rainwater and melted snow soaks into cracks in the predominantly limestone bedrock, reemerging in mostly small, low-yielding mountain springs. The Séd, beginning north of Herend (tapping the karst water reservoir of the High Bakony), starts its long journey in the structural depression separating the Balaton Uplands from its northern neighbor, the Veszprém-Devecser Basin. That it has been a reliable stream for centuries is attested by 15 water mills in Veszprém mentioned in a 19th-century record. The oldest began operating in the early 11th century and even after World War II, 11 mills still turned in the Séd's dance – the last ones retired in the 1960s.

Our city walk then takes a new direction as we set off up Gulya Hill. Before that, we pass under the Saint Stephen Valley Bridge, also known as 'the Viaduct,' which spans the shallow yet steep valley of the Séd. It was opened at the end of 1937 and named a few months later in honor of the 900th anniversary of the death of the state’s founder king. In the 1930s, the government's foreign policy shifted emphasis toward Austria, Italy, and Germany, leading to the decision to build Route 8 to the Austrian border. Although an alternative route was considered, Veszprém’s leadership saw economic potential in this city-crossing road, and reportedly the striking visual of a bridge drawn over a well-positioned photograph by the chief engineer influenced the final decision. Interestingly, the design did not primarily aim to meet aesthetic standards, yet the construction that fits into the landscape became one of Veszprém’s prominent symbols.

Three lookouts on the border of Veszprém

We cross the parking lot, and on the other side, the barely visible stone wall-squeezed staircase invites us via the P marker. On the wooded ridge, the trail has a narrow passage: the resin scent of black pine planted along the zoo fence mixes with the smell of livestock. The formerly barren dolomite slope leans into the Séd valley, its erosion forming a wavy surface following the pine-needle carpeted path. We step onto natural stone stairs and soon reach the site of a tower that once offered a city view on the edge of the plateau. From the railing, glimpses of the viaduct and the edge of the castle district, as well as many panel buildings, shine through.

Our path stays at the forest edge – although nothing points to it now, the name Gulya Hill reveals that animals once grazed here. By the mid-19th century, it had become a popular excursion spot for local citizens. The rocky Séd valley played a role in this, creating a surprisingly colorful landscape just a stone’s throw from downtown.

Skipping the hilltop, we walk out on a nature trail through oak-hornbeam woods spotted with pine patches to the edge of the high ground, from where we can survey the terrain surrounding the city in a semicircle. Behind the low hills dominate the mid-mountain peaks of the Bakony, with only Papod and its neighbors notably rising above the landscape. The sunny edge of the peak is covered with open dolomite rock grassland, quite common over wide areas in the Bakony. Because dolomite crumbles well but decomposes slowly, soil formation is slow, so vegetation takes hold only sparsely here. On steep, exposed slopes or on previously harvested and later used grazing areas, soil layers have been washed away, so only herbaceous plants grow instead of forest – although they do not cover the entire surface, allowing bright white rock outcrops to bask in the sunlight, attracting lizards hungry for the vibrant insect life.

We turn left and further ahead, at a tall grassy junction, we keep straight and change markers: the P▲ symbols direct us to the Queen Gizella lookout. The namesake was King Saint Stephen’s spouse, the first Hungarian queen. Since she used Veszprém as her seat, the right to crown the Hungarian king’s wife belonged to the bishop of Veszprém (making Veszprém "the city of queens").

The industrial-style lookout appears arched like a torch at first glance, but this optical illusion results from its construction of straight steel beams, which we can confirm upon closer inspection. (Its graceful silhouette somewhat resembles a queen chess piece.) From the top, beyond the trees of Gulya Hill, Veszprém is visible, surrounded by a flat, low plateau raised in a west-southwest direction by the Balaton Uplands. To the north, the main mass of the Bakony and the rounded block-like crest of the High Bakony attract attention – Papod stands out not only for its size but also for its lookout.

Park forest walk

At this point, our route leaves the marked hiking trail and continues through well-marked forest roads. After passing under the tower, the path joins a straight line where we turn right. The next section offers no particular excitement, just an easy forest walk. From the oak woods, we turn onto a long meadow (left), arriving at the heart of the Gulya Hill Park Forest. A gym was first built here in the 1970s, which has been repeatedly vandalized until unusable and then renovated.

About 100 meters later, still before the meadow ends, a forest path on the left leads us to the zoo fence. We turn left there and close our circle on a wide gravel road: when we step onto the P marker, we find the previously visited stairs to the right. The Rovaniemi stairs are named after Veszprém’s Finnish twin city and were given by the local association maintaining relations. The stairs provide connection between Gulya Hill and our last destination, the Séd valley.

Along the narrow-gauge railway line

At the bottom, we head right towards the zoo entrance. In a beautiful, landscaped environment squeezed between the Séd and the harsh, sometimes overhanging dolomite cliffs, the sidewalk runs, with benches offering rest in the shade of the tree row. The changes in Veszprém’s 20th-century history have pulled the appearance of Betekints Valley back and forth over the decades.

In the Kádár socialist era, significant recreational investments took place here: the Kittenberger Kálmán-named zoo opened in the late 1950s, and in 1961, the amusement park and camping opened here (the latter roughly on the site of today's Hungarian folk tale-themed playground). The two sites were linked by a short, only 1-kilometer pioneer railway, operated by local schoolchildren (the train drivers were, of course, adults). Its track cut through the rocky Gulya Hill via a tunnel – steel-sealed entrances near the stairs touched at the start of the route are still visible.

After 10 years, the water source was removed from the amusement park and narrow-gauge railway operations, ending both attractions. Several attempts were made to restart the train service but usually failed due to lack of funding, and once because two (exactly two) train drivers could not be found. The gradually dilapidated area was finally renovated at the end of the 2000s, developing it as a popular excursion destination.

The ornamental small grove’s history goes much further back: its most famous monument is the Veszprém Valley Greek Monastery (and Jesuit church), the city's oldest known building complex, whose founding charter is Saint Stephen’s only authentic document. Despite widespread stories, it is proven false that the coronation pallium robe was made here.

The walking path follows the dismantled narrow-gauge railway line underneath rock walls (where one or two smaller caves can be observed), and finally ends in the zoo parking lot. From here, we return along the route taken at the start of the hike to the Patak Square bus stop.