Szigliget training walk

 Itinerary

• From the parking lot, we take a few steps southward following the K trail marker.  
• For most of the route, we follow the nature trail's KT marker, which also touches the sand mine and the Kamon Stone.
• We climb up to Szigliget Castle on the KL trail marker.
• From the church, we return to the parking lot along a short section of the now known K trail marker.

 Detailed description of the hike

Szigliget Walk

The area around Szigliget has been inhabited for a long time (e.g., stone axe and hammer remains have been found within its borders), yet the present village was only settled at the beginning of the 15th century, called Újfalu (Wyfalu) or Szigliget (Zegligeth). The earlier settlement was likely continuously inhabited more or less since the Roman period. This is also supported by the ruins of the Avas church built in the 12th-13th centuries on Roman foundations (stones laid in a fishbone pattern in the ship walls).

We start southward on Kisfaludy Street following the K trail marker, then soon switch to the KT marker. Walking left on Kossuth Street, we stroll among the old houses of the village. From the Esterházy cellar, we can look back at the castle, then turn right onto Külsőhegyi road to continue. Before the intersection stands the White Cross restored in 2012, whose predecessor was already marked on an 1846 map.

Up to Kamon Stone

About 200 m from Külsőhegyi road, we turn right into the forest, from where small windows open in the canopy toward Szent György Hill and Szigliget Castle. On the stony path, we reach a small sand mine exposing the sediment of Lake Pannon, with several small animal-dug holes and burrows in its walls.

After a left turn, we climb up the northern valley of Hálás Hill, where large, prickly mistletoe bushes accompany us to the Hálás-alap clearing. Here, benches under an old field maple and a rain shelter provide comfort. The name Hálás Hill comes from the fact that the animals grazed here at night without being driven home.

Following the nature trail on level ground, we walk straight to the Kis-Kamon Stone resting place, which offers views of Lake Balaton and the Queen’s Skirt, crowned by the Old Castle. We turn back and soon, following the trail, turn left to arrive at the Kamon Stone’s exposed section stretching over 100 m long and 6-10 m high. The name probably relates to the Slavic word “kamenъ,” meaning stone. This word used to mean “rock,” so Kamon Stone can be understood as a stone rock.

The rock face is made from the first phreatomagmatic (explosive magma-water interaction) eruptions slightly over 4 million years ago in the Szigliget area. By then, the desiccated and river delta-filled Lake Pannon had turned into a marshy area, so the pyroclastic material fell into shallow water mixed with sandy and silty sediments. Water caused the finer tuff parts to clayify, visible in the lower section with finer tuff, fine sand, and sometimes wavy clay layers, indicating debris flow, sliding, and flowing. In the upper chaotic massive section, the proportion and size of rock fragments several hundred million years old (e.g., Permian red sandstone and Silurian phyllite) increase, showing strengthening explosions. Their epicenter was over 1000 m below the surface at the time. This section formed the eruption column's material. The wilderness of the rock face is enhanced by the evergreen climbing shrub common ivy, which occasionally hosts the protected ivy broomrape parasite. This species lacks chlorophyll and uses sucker roots to attach to the host’s cells, drawing water, salts, and assimilates from it.

Up to the summit

From the rock face, head north following the trail through acacia-modified oak woods back to the village. On the atmospheric Kossuth Street, we reach an intersection in front of the Szigliget Creative House owned by the Hungarian Creative Arts Public Foundation. The castle was built by baron József Puteani from Tót in the early 1840s, acquiring its current form after 1912 when Count Pál Esterházy purchased it — his family owned it with its accessories until World War II.

Near the end of the hike, we head toward Castle Hill (KL marker), a remnant of a central volcanic eruption. Among the hills, volcanic activity started with massive debris fallout followed by lava flows. The basalt produced by the lava flows is found only here in Szigliget, in an approximately 11 m wide seam of horizontal basalt columns on Castle Hill (about 3.5 million years old). Elsewhere it appears only as debris.

We reach the staircase to the castle bypassing Heroes’ Garden, not far from the former fortress gate.

Szigliget Castle

The oldest part of the castle, the upper castle, was built between 1260 and 1262 by King Béla IV with Pannonhalma’s abbot Favus; after its completion, it was taken back from him in exchange for Debréte, Alma, and Bak estates and assigned to the Móriczhidai family from the Pok clan, from whom the bishop of Veszprém reclaimed it in the latter half of the 13th century. The first known castellan was Acintus, mentioned in a 1300 charter. Later it had several royal and secular owners; by the mid-15th century, five villages – Felsőtomaj, Hegymagas, Nagyfalu, Sziget, and Újfalu – belonged to the castle. In 1526, King Louis II granted the building and its accessories to László Lengyel from Tót and his sons. Its best-known captain was Bálint Magyar, who managed the Szigliget and Fonyód castles from 1545 until his death in 1573. Under his nearly three-decade leadership, the Turks repeatedly besieged Szigliget but never managed to capture it. At that time, Szigliget literally rose from Lake Balaton as an island, so the Turks fiercely attacked from the water side, too. Gáspár Lengyel set up a small flotilla at his own expense and established a dock at present-day Réhely for it. In 1697, lightning exploded the gunpowder stored in the Benedictine tower, burning the castle down, and Emperor Leopold I later blew up the ruins to prevent their use by the Kuruc forces in the Rákóczi War of Independence.

Panorama

The castle offers one of the most beautiful 360° panoramas in the Balaton region, starting northward with Szent György Hill, then eastward through Gyulakeszi and Kisapáti to the little volcanic cone of Hegyesd crowned with castle ruins, the Agártető in the background, followed by the massifs of Bondoró and Kab Hill in the distance. Next comes the volcanic ruin of Csobánc with a castle, then the Hajagos, Láz Hill, Köves Hill, and Kopasz Hill ridge forming a barrier between the Tapolca and Káli basins, with Boncsos Hill (and Fekete Hill) volcanic system forefront on the latter’s northern boundary. Before Kopasz Hill lie Nemesgulács and Káptalantóti, in the distance Taró and Halom Hills, then mining scarred Gulács rising above the landscape, closed from the south by Szűcs Hill and Küszöb Hill. Before them, in the forefield of Csönge and Örsi Hills, lies the remains of a small fissure volcano, Hármas Hill, hiding behind Antal Hill. Finally, after the iconic Badacsony, the view reaches the surface of Lake Balaton. On the southern shore, the Külső-Somogy hills and the Sipos and Vár Hills of Fonyód follow. Although Hálás Hill briefly obscures the lake, it becomes visible again from Majális Hill. North of the Zala estuary near Balatongyörök, the view climbs the abrasion benches of the Keszthely Mountains to the Ederics plateau, in front of which lie the namesake village and Nemesvita. Further away stretch the ridges of Rezi Hill and Meleg Hill, followed by Kő Hill, Láz Hills, then Sümeg Castle, Kecskevár, and the long Rendeki Hill. The ridge’s two main peaks are Kis-Egyes-fa Hill and Hármas Hill. North of Raposkát, slightly right of the chimney of the Tapolca insulating material factory, Somló is visible in the distance. Above Hegymagas and Tapolca, the small humps of Véndek and Cseket Hills close the full panorama.

Back to the parking lot

Returning down the stairs from the castle, we visit the Church of the Virgin Mary of Szigliget, whose predecessor may have been built by the Benedictines simultaneously with the castle in the 13th century. In the 16th century, Szigliget was the center of the parish district with its seat in the castle. In 1725, the Tóti Lengyel family erected a new church dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene. By the 19th century, the building was in poor condition but was completely renovated by 1870 in neo-Gothic, Baroque style, consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary's Holy Name.

From the church, we can already see the parking lot, from where we started on the short section of the K trail marker.