Forest wandering around the Sopron adventure park

Itinerary

• We start from the parking shelter on the S trail.
• On the northern side of Károly Hill we reach the Z▲ trail, where we turn right.
• From the Károly Lookout we continue the route on the K▲ trail.
• We return to the Lövér Adventure Park, then turn left at the Ágfalva battle memorial on the S trail.
• At the Seven Beeches we switch to the K+ trail.
• We turn left on the K trail.
• After 700 m we turn right onto the paved Récényi road.
• After a short detour to the House of the Forest Ecotourism Visitor Center we turn right onto the Z trail.
• Turning left at a hunting stand we reach the K trail, which we follow to the Seven Beeches intersection.
• Turning right on the S trail we return to the adventure park.

Detailed description of the route

From the Adventure Park to Károly Hill

If we buy a ticket for the Lövér Adventure Park, the whole family can test their dexterity and sense of balance on obstacles mounted on the tree trunks. We start from the parking shelter on a wide dirt road on the S trail, walking alongside the adventure park fence for a while. We enter mixed regeneration from the oak forest, then after the hairpin bend into a forest pine woods, under which black blueberries are abundant. On the pleasant level path, which has views overlooking Felsőlövér with Taródi Castle, several benches serve our comfort. Later the pines slowly fall behind. On the northern side of Károly Hill we reach the Z▲ trail, where we turn right and after a short steep section reach the next bench. From here the route continues on easy terrain, gradually ascending to the Gombocz Endre Nature Knowledge House and the Károly Lookout tower above it.

The building next to the fire tower has become the second symbol of the city of Sopron and the most visited attraction in the Sopron park forest. At the site, a timber lookout tower stood already in 1876, built by Károly Romwalter, a local printer and publisher, at his own expense on the 398 m high Váris hill, which he later donated to the City Beautification Association, of which he was a board member. In his honor the Váris hill was renamed Károly Hill. Since the tower's condition deteriorated quickly, on the suggestion of Dr. Ferenc Printz, president of the City Beautification Association and deputy mayor, a competition was announced in 1896 for designing a new stone lookout. Unfortunately, due to the collapse of the Építőbank, which fundamentally shaped Sopron's economic life, the winning plan could not be realized, so in 1902 the association built another timber tower. Money for the current stone tower was raised only in 1933. The new design was prepared by engineer Oszkár Winkler from among fifty participants, and the contractor was Oszkár Füredi. The tower was ceremoniously inaugurated on June 14, 1936. After 1945, the lookout was taken over by the city municipality and returned only in 1996 to the Sopron City Beautification Association, which entrusted it to the Management of the Study Forest Economy managing the Sopron Park Forest.

The permanent exhibition called “Botanical Sanctuary” set in the first-floor room features the work of Pál Kitaibel (1757–1817), Endre Gombocz (1882–1945), and Zoltán Kárpáti (1909–1972), while the second-floor room showcases the work of Gyula Roth (1873–1961) and István Csapody (1930–2002).

From the two-level roof terrace we see northeast towards Sopron and Lake Fertő. In the distance the Bratislava castle can be spotted. To the southeast are Harkai Peak, Kópháza, and Nagycenk. On clear days you can even enjoy views of the Pannonhalma Archabbey. To the west and south, the ridges of the Sopron Mountains rise. On clear days we can also see the snow-covered massifs of Rax and Schneeberg.

Around the lookout stand memorial pillars for architect Oszkár Winkler, forest engineer and botanist Zoltán Kárpáti, forest engineer Gyula Roth, forest engineer and botanist István Csapody, and forest engineer and plant breeder Elemér Barabits.

From here we continue our route on the K▲ trail, immediately seeing the next attraction, the Kőhalmy Hunting Museum, opened in 2016, dedicated to forest engineer Tamás Kőhalmy, an internationally renowned wildlife biologist professor. Here is also a well-equipped forest adventure park and a forest buffet, then we reach the statue of forestry technician András Hédl (1920–2007), recipient of the Albert Bedő prize, who worked enthusiastically on developing tourist trails, nature trails, and other public welfare facilities in the Sopron forests.

Back to the Adventure Park

On the paved road we continue on the Witch Fairy Tale Trail (in the opposite direction) towards the Lövér Adventure Park. Opened in 2018 and mainly designed for kindergarten and lower primary school children, the stations with playful challenges requiring witch-like dexterity engage the children. At the plant nature trail board we continue straight, while the path veering to the left leads to the Dalos Hill TV Tower. About 300 meters later we reach the park's parking lot, at the far end of which stands the Ágfalva battle memorial.

Ágfalva played an important historical role at the beginning of the 20th century; its name is associated with two battles. The victorious great powers approved Austrian territorial claims on Western Hungary in the peace treaties closing World War I. Since the Hungarian state protested in vain, a resistance force organized from volunteers, who on August 28, 1921, at Ágfalva repelled the Austrian gendarmerie entering the territory. This marked the beginning of a one-and-a-half-month-long armed uprising in Western Hungary. The second battle at Ágfalva took place on September 8: the Hungarian insurgents called the Rongyos Gárda again pushed back the fourfold superior Austrian forces, who once again failed to enter Sopron.

The Italians undertook mediation between the parties. This led to the Venice Conference in October, where the Hungarian state succeeded in arranging a plebiscite to decide the affiliation of the disputed territory in Sopron and eight neighboring settlements, which finally took place in mid-December 1921. The final result was announced on December 17 at the Zrínyi Ilona Officer Female Training Institute, and the Sopron newspapers wrote an extraordinary edition declaring, "With a majority of 7107 we remained Hungarian." A total of 15,334 voted for Hungary, 8,227 for Austria. Although most of the smaller border settlements voted for Austria, it was Sopron and its strong Hungarian majority that decided the question; thus it earned the title "The Most Loyal City" and the inscription CIVITAS FIDELISSIMA was added to its coat of arms.

The 8 Second Loop

At the memorial we turn left on the S trail, which soon leaves the paved road to the right into a mixed, acornless oak forest. After a longer straight section we arrive at the Seven Beeches, where several trails meet. The former seven-trunked old tree inspired Sándor Mészáros, secretary of the Frankenburg Literary Circle. His poem entitled Seven Beeches was the only poem on the literary boards placed in the city’s forests by the Sopron City Beautification Association in the 1930s that was inspired by the spirit of the place. The last beech trunk fell during World War II due to a storm; today only a plaque and benches remind of the special tree that once stood here. Members of the Sopron Postal Nature Hiking Department planted 8 beech seedlings in the 1970s, of which 6 can still be found here.

After the benches we continue straight and switch to the K+ trail, whose later road cut offers insight into the forest soil. The understory of the acornless oak forest consists mainly of black blueberries over a relatively long stretch. After the oak swamp and two intersections we reach the K trail with a short descent, where we turn left.

After 700 meters we turn right onto the paved Récényi road and after a short walk reach the House of the Forest Ecotourism Visitor Center, opened in autumn 2021, at Muck House, the former site of the Muck border guard station. The exhibition hall condenses forest experiences; the exhibition immediately absorbs us when the door closes behind us. We step into a forest section, where exciting sights hide in every corner. The exhibition space offers adventures for the whole family, where we can learn about the surrounding forest world through play. In the enclosure we can get to know the local forest game species’ living “classics” almost up close. Not far from here, next to the closed forest guesthouse, operates the Muck tourist house opened in 2023, with a capacity of 40 people, where overnight stays are possible with prior registration.

From here we return to the gravel road closed by a barrier and turn right following the Z trail, which follows the route of the former technical border closure (iron curtain) and then turns left at the far end of the game fence.

In the mixed forest we soon turn right and enter a dense pine forest to reach Ferenc Spring. The water source, springing from the upper section of Füzes-ditch, feeds the Kecske Creek. This is one of the oldest springs in the Sopron Mountains, already marked in 1787 by Andreas Sárközi, a municipal engineer, on his map under the name "Hunter’s Spring". Since 1907 it has been called Ferenc Spring after Ferenc Jány renovated it at his own expense. The pump house built nearby, now in ruins, provided drinking water supply for the Muck border guard station for decades. The spring water flows to the surface via an underground basin overflow.

We leave the forest by a hunting stand. We walk along the edge of a logged forest section; turning left at the next stand we reach the K trail on the gravel road. At the barrier after the Kati Imre bench, we cross the Kecske Creek and return to Récényi road on a left bend. Crossing this we soon return to the Seven Beeches junction, where turning right on the familiar S trail brings us back to the adventure park.