Panoramic adventure hike for kids and adults

Itinerary

• Starting westward from the bus stop, at number 101 on Ady Endre Street, turn south onto the Z trail.
• From the Braun Nándor memorial column, take a small detour to the Scout Chapel via the Z▲ trail.
• Return to the Z trail and follow it to the end of the curve after the gravel parking lot.
• Turn right onto the Z+ trail.
• About 200 m later, turn right onto the Z▲ trail, then after the Gloriette lookout, return to the Z+ trail.
• Upon reaching the Z trail, turn left.
• Passing the adventure park, continue the hike on the K▲ trail.
• Leave the Károly Hill on the S▲ trail, which will guide us to the endpoint of our route.

Detailed description of the hike

From Sopron to the Alom Hill shelter

At number 101 on Ady Endre Street, we turn south onto the Z trail, which leads behind the houses on a wide dirt road into a mixed hornbeam-oak forest without acorns. About 200 m later, the ascent route joins another dirt road where we turn right. After a hairpin turn, we arrive at the stone bench built in 1931 from the legacy of Lajos Schöll. From here, after another large but not steep turn, we reach the Braun Nándor memorial column standing on the Nándor Hill. Nándor (1802-77) arranged the walkway leading here and the resting benches with beautiful views in the 1870s. The namesake was president of the Sopron Evangelical Convention and the Sopron Rosary, a board member of the Sopron General Savings Bank, and an esteemed citizen of the city of Sopron. The modest and hardworking originally candle-dipper and soap boiler had a great influence on the lives of the locals. Admirers already called today's Ady Endre Street “Nándor Avenue” during his lifetime, which leads to the hill named after him. Here the now weathered obelisk was erected the year after his death.

From here, a small detour can be made to the Scout Chapel via the Z▲ trail. During the uncertainty of the 1930s, several people ended their lives from the top of the quarry in Bánfalva. Inspired by an article in the Soproni Hírlap in 1937, Vilmos Gereben, leader of Scout Troop 382 Saint Imre, and architect László Gallus designed the small chapel, whose illustration was widely reproduced as a postcard by the Rötting-Romwalter printing house, and supported payment booklets were printed for local restaurants to help build the chapel. It was built by József Radits, and inside the wall opening, the teacher János Mihalovics’ image of Mary was placed. The six-meter-high cross was made from railway iron by the GYSEV scouts. The small chapel, inaugurated and consecrated on October 23, 1937, was re-consecrated on September 20, 2008, during an ecumenical commemoration attended by the leadership of the City of Sopron with county rights and the Sopron City Beautification Association. Beautiful views open up in front of it to Bánfalva and the standing Pauline monastery.

On the still ascending path, we soon reach the benches of the Alom Hill shelter. At the top of the hill stands the reinforced concrete tower of the Geodynamics Observatory of the Geodetic and Geophysical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in front of which formerly gleamed a gloriette built in 1886. Braun Nándor is also commemorated here, which is why older tourist maps still referred to this site as Nándor lookouts. From the benches, there is a beautiful panorama of Sopron, Bánfalva, the Bucklige Welt region, and the distant Schneeberg and the Rosalia Mountains.

Through the Lövér Adventure Park

Heading down further, we soon reach the first houses of Felsőlővérek, then turn right at the parking lot and continue the hike on the second trail branching from the curve on the Z+ trail, which starts with an ascent. About 200 m later, turn right onto the relatively steep Z▲ trail, where we reach the Gloriette lookout on Vas Hill.

From the 1886 Sopron guidebook “Illustrierter Führer durch Oedenburg und seine Umgebungen” commissioned by Károly Romwalter, we learn that Henrik Kugler proposed the idea of a gloriette here to the city council in 1876, which was finally realized in 1909 on the edge of a steep cliff at the high point. The current accessible lookout, about 8 m high, was built in 1989 by the Study Forest Management Co. Ltd. with the cooperation of the Sopron City Beautification Association. From the terrace, there is a nice panorama towards Várhely, the Carmelite church, and Schneeberg. Benches and a fire pit next to the building facilitate rest.

After the lookout, turning left, we reach an intersection on the trail passing through acornless oak forest, from where the fence of the Vas Hill shelter is already visible. From here, there is a view of the city and the Fertő lake behind it. Interestingly, at the bottom of the cliff below the shelter is a shooting range used by the Sopron Lövér Archery Association. Returning to the intersection, we continue left on the Z+ trail for about 1 km towards Fáber meadow, then turning left at the Z trail. We cross the asphalt road and soon arrive at the parking lot of the Lövér Adventure Park near the Ágfalva battle memorial.

The Ágfalva battle marked the beginning of the one and a half month-long armed uprising in western Hungary on August 28, 1921, during which irregular forces under the command of Mihály Francia-Kiss, Károly Kaszala, and Viktor Maderspach pushed back the superior Austrian troops. The insurgents also captured Robert Davy, the newly appointed governor of Burgenland.

During the second Ágfalva battle on September 8, 1921, the Hungarian insurgents called the Rongyos Gárda, under the command of reserve cavalry captain Viktor Maderspach, captain Pál Gebhardt, and reserve artillery lieutenant Elemér Székely, again pushed back the Austrians who were four times superior in number. On December 8, 1921, a contingent of Allied peacekeepers arrived from Upper Silesia, under whose supervision a plebiscite was held on December 14 on the affiliation of Sopron and the surrounding settlements, based on the Treaty of Venice. Its results were announced on December 17 at the Zrínyi Ilona Officer Girl's Training Institute, and Sopron newspapers reported in a special edition that “we remained Hungarian by a majority of 7107 votes.” 15,304 voted for Hungary and 8,227 for Austria. Since then, Sopron became known as the “most loyal city,” and so the inscription CIVITAS FIDELISSIMA was added to its coat of arms.

Up to the Károly Lookout

Passing in front of the adventure park, we continue the hike on the K▲ trail and on the asphalt road start the Witch Fairy Tale Trail towards the Károly Lookout. Opened in 2018, it is mainly designed for kindergartners and lower primary school children and consists of a series of stations with playful tasks that require witch-like skills from the children. Successful completion is rewarded in the forest buffet. After the board introducing plants, we continue straight. We pass the Dalos Hill TV tower and reach the statue of András Hédl (1920–2007), forestry technician and recipient of the Albert Bedő award—one of the most prestigious accolades in the field—about 300 m later. He enthusiastically worked on the tourist paths, nature trails, and public welfare facilities of the Sopron forests in the Sopron Mountains. On the other side of the road is the forest experience park with a well-equipped playground and forest buffet offering a good resting opportunity. It is worth visiting the Kőhalmy Hunting Museum, inaugurated in 2016 in memory of forest engineer and internationally renowned wildlife biologist Tamás Kőhalmy, as well as the Károly Lookout.

The latter became the second symbol of Sopron after the Fire Tower and the most visited area of the Sopron park forest. Previously, there was a wooden lookout built in 1876 at its location, which local printer and publisher Károly Romwalter constructed at his own expense on the 398 m high Váris Hill and donated to the City Beautification Association, of which he was a board member. The hill was renamed Károly Hill in his honor. Because the tower's condition deteriorated rapidly, on the suggestion of Dr. Ferenc Printz, president of the City Beautification Association, a tender was announced in 1896 to prepare plans for a new stone lookout, but due to the bankruptcy of Építőbank, which primarily determined the city’s economic life, the winning plan could not be realized. Thus, the City Beautification Association built a new wooden lookout in 1902. Funds for the current stone lookout were only raised in 1933. The new tender was prepared by architect Oszkár Winkler from fifty applicants, and the contractor was Oszkár Füredi. The tower was ceremoniously inaugurated on June 14, 1936. After 1945, the tower was acquired by the city's local government and only returned to the Sopron City Beautification Association in 1996, which entrusted it to the Study Forest Management maintaining the Sopron Park Forest.

Inside the first-floor room is a permanent exhibition called the “Botanical Sanctuary,” showcasing works of Pál Kitaibel (1757–1817), Endre Gombocz (1882–1945), and Zoltán Kárpáti (1909–1972), while the second-floor room exhibits the works of Gyula Roth (1873–1961) and István Csapody (1930–2002). From the two-story roof terrace, looking northeast, there is a view of Sopron and Fertő lake. The Bratislava castle is also visible in the distance. Southeastwards, Harka Peak, Kópháza, and Nagycenk are visible; on clear days, one can even admire the Pannonhalma Abbey. West and south show the ridges of the Sopron Mountains. If the air is not too humid, the snow-covered blocks of Rax and Schneeberg can also be seen.

Around the lookout stand memorial columns dedicated to Oszkár Winkler (architect), Zoltán Kárpáti (forest engineer, botanist), Gyula Roth (forest engineer), István Csapody (forest engineer, botanist), and Elemér Barabits (forest engineer, plant breeder). Opposite the lookout, the Endre Gombocz Nature Knowledge House awaits visitors.

Back to Sopron

We leave Károly Hill on the S▲ trail, which winds under an acornless oak forest mixed with black pine. At the bottom of the forest, a rocky-rooted path cutting through a lily of the valley carpet can become slippery in rainy weather. We start a steep descent, then upon reaching a wider road, turn right and emerge onto a clear-cut through a pleasant acornless oak forest where young acornless oak saplings about 1 m high grow. Returning to the forest, we turn right before a bench and soon reach the Muck memorial on the right side of the road.

Known as the “father of Sopron forests,” Endre Muck, originally from the Sudetenland in the Czech Republic, successfully applied for the position of forest warden in Sopron in 1874. Until then, the city's 7,000-acre forest estate had mainly been renewed by coppicing, providing only firewood-quality timber. In 1886, Muck prepared the first operational plan for the Sopron forests, which became the basis for regular forest management. Already in 1881, he began pine plantations along Várhely and Kecske Creek, aimed at preparing the site for a healthy, longer cutting cycle oak and beech stand. His plantations were large for their age; for example, nearly 400,000 seedlings were planted in 1910, along with 80 kg of poplar seeds sown. During 35 years of forest service, he gradually converted coppice forests into high forests while increasing the previous 15–20 year cutting cycle to 40, then 60 years.

Besides his profession, he played a decisive role in the efforts of the Sopron City Beautification Association and the Transdanubian Tourist Association to make the surroundings of the city passable. Thanks to his work, by 1906, 335 km of marked tourist paths crisscrossed the Sopron Mountains. He produced tourist maps commissioned by Károly Romwalter and published as supplements to the first Sopron guide “Illustrierter Führer durch Oedenburg und seine Umgebungen.” He was a member of the Lövér Commission and organized the Villa row holiday settlement.

Following the trail on a peaceful walking path and a left turn, we reach the bus stop in front of the Lövér Hotel, the endpoint of our hike.