From the Lipizzaner stud to the Millennium Lookout Tower

Itinerary:

• We start on the S+ trail at Park Street to the winding paved road on the Bükk Plateau.
• Upon reaching the road, we walk back on the S cycling trail to the Kalapati resting place.
• From the resting place, the KT diagonal nature trail leads up to the Millennium Lookout Tower.
• From the lookout tower, we return to Szilvásvárad on the KT trail.

Detailed description of the route:

Above the village

We start from the eastern end of Szilvásvárad, from beside the Riding Hall at the entrance of the Szalajka Valley, on Park Street following the S+ trail.

The name Szilvásvárad is closely connected with horse breeding, carriage driving, and the Lipizzaner stud farm. The most splendid carriage horses of the Habsburg court were originally bred in the Lipizza area above Trieste. The horses became particularly strong and resilient animals in the mountainous environment, making them excellently suitable for the magnificent imperial carriages. The stud farm was relocated from Lipizza to Hungary during the war, and a significant part of the herd finally settled in Bábolna and then Szilvásvárad. The climate of the Bükk Plateau accessible from here suits the Lipizzaner population perfectly.

Park Street winds behind the Stud Farm up the hillside, where our path runs beside a pasture reserved for forest-edge horses. From the edge of the meadow, the characteristic Millennium Lookout Tower with its pointed roof, sitting prominently on an outcrop, already appears high above us. On the far side of the meadow, the trail almost invisibly blends among the chestnut tree row and moves sideways at the foot of the hill through a living tunnel of branches. We join a forestry road, which on the neighboring ridge merges with the traditional Bérci Road leading up to the Bükk Plateau.

The Bérci Road climbs with increasing steepness on the steep northern slope of Rák Mara. After the bustle of Szilvásvárad, on the far side of the ridge, we can enjoy the silence of the Northern Bükk. Through clearings, we look into the Szalajka and Tótfalu valleys parallel with the Szána valley. Circumventing the steep Dark Valley, the Bérci Road reaches the ridge, where it joins an asphalt road heading to the Bükk Plateau. Here, we sharply change direction and head back on the asphalt road on the S cycling trail towards Szilvásvárad.

At the beginning of the asphalt road, we still follow the ridge, from where we can sense the depth below us – the deep incision of the Szalajka and Tótfalu valleys. Across from us, above Közép-bérc, the unreal white rocks of Bél-kő appear. Unfortunately, the rock once considered the pearl of Bükk was mined in the last century, and instead of the original natural forms, only the terraced limestone walls carved out inside the mountain show white.

The road circumnavigates the summit and meets the nature trail heading towards the lookout at the Kalapati resting place. On the KT diagonal nature trail, we climb to the mountain peak. The summit is fenced and features a small meadow in the center, crowned by the Millennium Lookout towering over the surroundings.

At the Millennium Lookout

The building also known as the Kalapati lookout was inaugurated in 2000 on the birthday of King Saint Stephen and the Hungarian State, from which it gets its millennium name. The 36-meter-high lookout with a 20-meter terrace level has extraordinary dimensions; the copper cladding on the top alone weighs nearly two tons. Carpenters from Transylvania assembled the wooden structure made of Siberian pine.

From the lookout, we can observe the western edge of the Bükk Plateau, the deeply incised valleys cutting westwards, and the ring of villages surrounding the Western Bükk. On clear days, the Mátra and the mountains of Upper Hungary can be seen all the way to the Tatras. Our best view, however, falls on Szilvásvárad: we see the multicolored mosaic of the village, the characteristic round church, and the gravel of the dominant carriage driving track like on a map.

From this perspective, we truly feel the size of the Bükk massif, as the limestone block forming the Bükk Plateau rises like a solid wall westwards, in places reaching a thickness of a thousand meters. The central core is surrounded by softer sediments, into which streams can carve sharply, forming the Tótfalu and Szalajka valleys beneath us, through which wood cut from the central part of the Bükk was transported out of the mountain. On the steep western side, logs cut on the plateau were lowered on a ski slope and horse tracks to the edge of the western rim, then transported out of the mountain by the Szalajka Valley railway.

Back to Szilvás on the nature trail

From the lookout back to the Kalapati resting place we return the way we came, then continuing the descent on the KT trail, winding down the steep slope of Rák Mara past informational boards explaining the life of the forest. Along the way, there are two covered resting places where one can sit or seek shelter in bad weather. In a mixed oak forest with planted forest pines, the atmospheric, well-trodden path winds on the steeply dropping hillside. Bypassing a larger clearing and crossing a lovely oak forest, the road reaches the ski and sledding meadow at the top of the Szalajka Valley. On the edge of the meadow, along the path, rock exhibits characteristic of the Bükk can be seen with explanatory boards, allowing recognition of various ages and appearances of rocks known from the mountain range. At the bottom of the meadow, at the national park’s reception building, we return to our starting point behind the huge riding hall.