Nagyhuta – Füzér (Day 66 of the OKT Hike)

In Nagyhuta, you can get your passport stamped at the fence of the mayor’s office before walking along the paved forest road to Kishuta. The two hut villages were founded in the early 18th century; their Slovak inhabitants made glass using materials from the surrounding forests, and later, their itinerant wire and glass craftsmen traveled to even the most remote corners of the country. Kishuta is a surprisingly long settlement; it takes a good three-quarters of an hour to walk the length of its main street, which is crossed by the Pálháza Forest Railway line. The narrow-gauge railway is an interesting piece of industrial history in the Tokaj Mountains: today it carries tourists between Pálháza and Rostalló, but until the early 1980s, the tracks ran from Füzérkomlós all the way to Sárospatak, and at one time, the network even extended as far as Nyíregyháza.

We leave Kishuta behind on the access road leading to Pálháza, right next to the railroad tracks, but the tracks soon veer into the forest, moving away from the asphalt. The walk to Pálháza, which takes a good half hour, is completely flat; the only point of interest is the perlite mine, whose noise can be heard from quite a distance away. This is the only place in the country where perlite—used primarily as a thermal and sound insulator and secondarily as a filter material—has been mined (since 1958). The rock is actually a variety of rhyolite, formed by the interaction of acidic magma and a water-rich environment.

We walk into Pálháza, Hungary’s smallest town, alongside the narrow-gauge railroad tracks; here we can choose from several restaurants and lodging options, and this is also the easiest place to travel home from. The K trail leads up to Füzérradvány along a winding, low-traffic access road—looking back, the view of the mountains beyond the fields is beautiful in places. The village, nestled on the slopes of Korom Hill, is notable for the Károlyi Castle, which was remodeled in the 19th century the Károlyi Castle, which was remodeled according to the plans of Miklós Ybl; work on its park began in the 18th century, but most of it was built in the early 20th century. The English garden features centuries-old tree trunks, a pond, and several kilometers of walking paths, while an exhibition inside the mansion showcases its history and former daily life.

In the center of Füzérradvány, on a sign across from the church, you’ll find the Kéktúra stamp. Next to it, there’s a charging station where you can charge your phone.

Füzérradvány – Füzér

We leave the village along the fence of the castle park and begin a gentle ascent up the side of the Korom-tető ridge. From one vantage point, we can still see into the castle park before we enter the mixed oak forest—which, despite the presence of a logging road, is in exceptionally good condition. The natural conditions have been preserved in the forests of this mountain range partly because the property line runs along its ridge; moreover, when miners from Telkibánya were searching for gold ore here in the early 19th century, they stumbled upon kaolin. The mine is still in operation today, supplying raw materials to the porcelain factory in Hollóháza. But millstone was also quarried here, so for a long time, the locals were more interested in the mountain’s depths than in its trees.

At one point, the Blue Trail veers off the transport road (to the left) and begins to climb the slope, which suddenly becomes steep. The terrain also changes: a sign indicates that forest management aims to maintain relatively natural conditions, which is evident in the forest, as dead trees lie scattered everywhere, with boulders covering the ground among them. What appears to be a sea of stones is not, in fact, an entirely natural formation; the hillside is partly covered with rock material from the former millstone quarry located further up. The trail turns left and levels off; this is where the scenery is most spectacular: everything is covered in moss—even the boulders, some as large as cars, and the rotting tree trunks wedged between them.

There are reportedly half-finished millstones on the slope as well. Further on, the trail widens into an abandoned transport road; after descending this slope, we can spot the semicircular walls of the old millstone quarry among the trees to our right. The rhyolite tuff, which has been hardened by exposure to acidic solutions, is excellent for carving, yet durable enough to be used as millstones; however, higher-quality tuff was also quarried nearby: on Megyer Hill, near Sárospatak, which has become famous for its lake and spectacular rock formations.

The Blue Trail winds to the right along a stone-lined path, climbing up the increasingly steep mountainside. The landscape is defined by the surface traces of mining: potholes, closed pits, and wide cavities dot the terrain everywhere. These were created by caving mining; essentially, the ground collapsed over the former mine shafts. Moss is a common feature here as well; the landscape is exceptionally varied, and the forest is dense and tangled. We reach a logging road; here the terrain flattens out, and the mountain is uniformly covered by a forest of middle-aged oak trees.

One of the lakes formed in the depressions of the collapsed mine shafts is Kis-Büdös Lake, after which the trail turns toward the mountaintop. We wind our way through dense, now mixed forests, and as we cross the ridge, a beech forest comes into view. Here, too, the mountain is covered by a field of mining pits, but this one is set back on the slope. A dark beech forest covers the upper part of Korom-tető; to the left, among the tree trunks, we can spot the Kenyhercz Spring, a spring equipped with a bench, a table, and a small wooden hut. Water flows from the spring—named after the former estate forester—even during drier periods, and this is the only rest stop between Füzérradvány and Füzérkajata.

As we descend, it’s clear that circular clearings in the forest let light in; as a result, trees of all ages appear in this future old-growth forest, creating dense, varied conditions. Finally, at its youthful edge, we emerge onto a logging road, where we turn left. Here, on the left, stands a massive retention tree (left behind during earlier logging to ensure future yields), the “200-year-old oak.” The road holds no other surprises on the way to Füzérkajata; we walk past a forester’s house and, following a wide logging road and then a paved road, turn into the tiny hamlet of Füzérkajata.

Rest areas equipped with benches and tables line the street in dense rows (there’s a blue well next to one and a wheeled well next to another); from the first one on the left, we can also look out toward the center of the Tokaj Mountains. The road is short on the other side of Füzérkajata, and there, next to an orchard, we turn off the village road. We follow the undulating dirt road through the forest for a relatively short distance until we reach the Török area, where the atmosphere of the route changes completely. Ahead, Füzér Castle, perched on a rocky outcrop, finally comes into view, with the forested peaks of the Milic Range beside it and the Mejeszke hill opposite. We cross the field by making a wide turn, and after a short walk through the woods, from the edge of Pusztafalu’s former pastures and hayfields, we can see Füzér Castle even more closely—and to its right, the rocky face of Tolvaj Hill also comes into view. The largest of the Kopáros peaks is Sólyom-kő, but thanks to the many other peaks of varying sizes, this is the rockiest volcanic mountain east of the Danube Bend. It’s worth noting that in the 1930s, the National Blue Trail began at its summit because the forest owners in the originally planned location of Nagy-Milicen refused to allow tourists to pass through.

We arrive in Pusztafalu—a village that has been depopulated several times and, thanks to Tolvaj Hill, has a Transylvanian-like landscape—via a scenic, panoramic dirt road. Next to the cemetery with its wooden headstones, we make a slight ascent as we leave the village, and walk across the meadow stretching out at the foot of Tolvaj Hill toward Mejeszke. At one point, the S▲ trail branches off to the right from the forest path; it’s hard to follow, but the orange trapezoidal markers of the Via Carpatica Vulcanica are much more visible. We highly recommend taking the approximately 10-minute detour to the Mejeszke cliff—where the forest road turns sharply to the right, the trail branches off back toward the lookout point. Once you’ve found it, walk out onto the clearing behind the pine trees, because the panorama is spectacular: directly across lies the forested massif of Bába Mountain, below stretches the Hegyköz region, and on the far side, the entire mass of the Tokaj Mountains undulates. Looking to the left in the distance, you can see Vihorlát in Slovakia (as high as the Mátra), with the Carpathian mountain range above Uzhhorod looming behind it.

Returning to the K trail, we walk along the edge of the forest, but under the trees for a while, before emerging onto an open field. Since the terrain slopes downward, the entire Hegyközi Basin and the Tokaj Mountains are visible on the other side; in the center, Csattantyús Hill rises above all the other ridges, while to the left, the cones of the Sátoros Mountains line up in a row. After passing through another stretch of mixed forest, we emerge onto the plains of Füzér, and after a short climb, Füzér Castle comes into view ahead. The dark dacite cliff beneath the castle walls was formed by the cooling of magma trapped in a volcanic vent; because it is very hard, it has withstood erosion better than the surrounding landscape, which is why it towers so steeply above the terrain. To the left, beneath a cluster of trees, stands a small, gabled rain shelter with a pointed roof. To the left, we can catch another glimpse of the massive central part of the mountain range, and then we reach one of Füzér’s streets. The stamp is located in the village center, on a sign on the right side of the road.