In Petőfi’s Footsteps on the Körös Riverside (PICK Red Circle Tour)

• From the bus stop, follow the Z◼ marking to the intersection of Szent István Street and Martinovics Street.
• From the intersection, continue straight ahead on the Z marking all the way to the bridgehead of the Double Körös Bridge in Mezőberény.
• From the western side of the bridge, you can take a round trip detour on the P+ marking to the Bodoki Károly Water Management Museum.
• From the bridge, follow the embankment on the officially P↺ but actually unmarked asphalt road to the pump station of the Csárdaszállási Canal.
• From the pump station, return to Mezőberény on the sparse Z marking, arriving at the Z◼ junction.
• From the junction, the Z◼ markings lead back to our start and end point, the bus stop.

Detailed description of the tour

Bustling small town

Although nowadays the square at the starting point of the tour, as well as the area south of it, can be considered the center of Mezőberény, traditionally there were three centers: Slovaks, Germans, and Transylvanian Hungarians were settled here after 1723 in place of a destroyed village. The ethnic groups lived separately: Slovaks in the north, Swabians (Germans) in the middle corresponding to today's town center, and Hungarians to the south near the current railway station.

We start our tour at the Mezőberény, Liget Street bus stop, in the center of this small town with about ten thousand inhabitants. From the bus stop we go around the market building and cross the large square behind it. To the left stands the Catholic church built in 1886. The reason why it took 160 years between the founding of "present" Mezőberény and the construction of this building is explained by the aforementioned three ethnic groups. Originally, there were no Catholics living in the area, since the Slovaks and Germans arriving were evangelical, and the Hungarians were reformed by faith. That is why, aside from the Catholic church, three other churches can be found in Mezőberény: the Slovak church in the northern part of the town, the German evangelical church in the center, and the Hungarian reformed church in the south.

Several buffets and a beer garden operate around the market square where you can briefly eat or drink. The tour continues east along the Z◼ marking, on Szent István Street, soon reaching the Z marking and the Kálmán Bath (a leisure park and guesthouse in Mezőberény). The open-air pools, open only during summer season (June 1–August 31), are fed by warm thermal water springing from the left side of our route, which flows with a large volume to the canal outside the bath’s operating hours. Although officially not drinking water, locals frequently collect and consume it once cooled.

The Laposi Gardens

The Z marking leaves Mezőberény’s inner area on Belencéresi Street. We cross the outskirts of town on asphalt, then soon turn left onto the road bordering the 240-250 hectare Laposi Gardens. We pass a pálinka distillery whose owner is happy to give guided tours upon prior notice. The markings guide us right at the "third gate," through which we pass the Laposi Gardens. There are a total of 9 east-west oriented "streets" between the long strip plots, where vineyards, orchards, arable fields, and holiday homes alternate.

The pasture east of Mezőberény was divided into small garden plots in the mid-1800s, after the "Old Garden" became too small. Due to the proximity of the Körös, this area with an excellent microclimate mostly cultivated grapes (especially significant after the phylloxera epidemic wiped out old-vineyards), and fruit trees were planted between the vines, with some vegetable gardens here and there. From the 1960s onwards, more and more people built weekend houses and holiday homes, including visitors from Békéscsaba and Gyula who regularly came to the lively gardens on weekends. Due to migration of younger generations, fewer and fewer gardens are maintained today; uncultivated plots are common, sometimes even plowing them over—the distinctive atmosphere of the Laposi Gardens remains one of the highlights of the tour.

Petőfi and nature conservation

Mezőberény’s famous native artist Orlai Petrich Soma, a painter who was Petőfi’s second cousin and good friend, often visited the family, who then went out to the Laposi Gardens, which Petőfi greatly loved. He carved his monogram into several trees, but sadly these specimens have been destroyed over time. Similarly, the Petrich family house where Petőfi stayed no longer stands; today the imposing Town Hall is located there.

Former floodplain among arable fields

Leaving the Laposi Gardens, our way crosses dirt roads laid diagonally amid fields surrounded by waterways perpendicular to each other. After the expulsion of the Turks, the formerly huge floodplain of the Körös-Berettyó water system was regulated over the years to provide for the rapidly growing population’s food needs. Small local interventions occurred continuously, but major centrally managed alterations happened only in the 19th century. More than half a century of work resulted in the landscape seen today in the Körös region: a complex system of canals with sluices, pump stations, riverbank embankments, and fields reaching right up to their edges.

On such terrain, with the distant view of the Körös Bridge’s steel structure, we cover two kilometers until we reach the asphalt connecting Mezőberény and Bélmegyer. The tour turns left on the embankment; it’s worth taking a longer detour or at least descending to the river to sit by the slow Double Körös riverbank.

Detour to the Water Management Museum

Though not part of the map’s depicted route, we can visit the Bodoki Károly Water Management Museum along a 5 km round-trip detour free of charge with prior notice. To reach it, we must cross the relatively low-traffic bridge and turn right along the embankment on the floodplain forest side, following the P+ marking. The former pump station is behind the embankment but its chimney clearly indicates our destination. We climb the embankment via steps and descend it, arriving at the museum.

The former pump station built in 1898, standing by the canal bank, still retains its original steam boiler and mechanical units. Besides these, the site displays the history of the Körös regulation, old instruments, and other devices brought here from elsewhere.

Illustrious personalities

Let’s return to the western bank of the Double Körös! From here we follow a unmarked path north along the embankment. A Petőfi monument stands right at the crossing, commemorating the poet’s crossing on the Körös here. Petőfi visited Mezőberény for the third and last time in 1849. While locals wanted to hide him, he insisted on joining Bem’s Transylvanian army. On July 18, he boarded the ferry here and left the Great Plain forever.

Although Petőfi did not visit Mezőberény often, a strong local cult has built up around him. Several statues and reliefs depict him throughout the town, a high school bears his name, and he even has a memorial room. The seemingly distant but passionately maintained connection between Petőfi and the town is further strengthened by Orlai Petrich Soma and Júlia Szendrey: the latter was a pupil at the girls' school operating in the Mezőberény castle for three years.

An inconvenient winding path

On our left the Boldishát holiday park hides in the grove, surrounded by a dead arm of the river. At the Csárdaszállási Canal pump station, we leave the embankment by steps and continue along the northern bank of the artificial lake. Power poles line our way, adorned occasionally with Z markings. On our left is the canal, on our right fields, and the distant tower of Köröstarcsa church is visible.

A more monotonous section follows the long, 1.5-km straight road before turning left. After a short winding near a farm fence, we approach Mezőberény along a scenic but very narrow forest strip. We climb a small hill, which we might not suspect is actually a tumulus. Our zigzag continues: right again onto the canal embankment, then—already on the town outskirts—the Z markings steer us left.

We pass by the Medvefejes Lake’s salty pond (named for its bear-head shape from a bird’s eye view), which was once a favored habitat for waterfowl but almost completely dried out during the 2020s droughts and even caught fire several times; in its current state it holds little ecological or aesthetic value.

The Z marking leads back along Martinovics Street close to the Kálmán Bath, where turning right onto the Z◼ marking brings us back to our starting point, the Mezőberény, Liget Street bus stop. The charming small town offers many small sights, so if time allows, take a look around!