The summits of the Buda Hills

Itinerary

• We start from Tisza István Square heading towards Budapest on the main street following the S sign.
• At the town hall we turn left onto the P sign, which we follow until the Nagy-Szénás slope.
• We turn left onto the K sign, staying on it through the Nagy-Szénás to the Fenyő clearing.
• We continue hiking along the side of Kutya Hill, following the K+ sign.
• At a junction, we turn right onto the S sign, which we follow to the Fehér út viewpoint.
• From the viewpoint after the Szerdahely cut, we turn back on the S sign and return to Nagykovácsi.

Detailed description of the hike

Nagykovácsi, the hermit of the Buda Hills

Nagykovácsi, located near the capital, is exceptionally positioned: surrounded by hills on all sides, it nestles like a true dead-end village at the bottom of its basin. The area was already inhabited in Roman times but got its name later when royal workers, specifically blacksmiths, lived there. It was depopulated during the Turkish era and later settled by Swabian colonists in the mountains, who provided them with abundant work and goods. The basin’s fertile soil, resulting from former stream deposits, offered possibilities for agriculture, while limestone, dolomite, and coal mining also provided important income sources – as did forestry, where logging and lime burning meant livelihood. Germans are now scarcely found; after World War II, 800 families were forcibly transported to Germany from the Solymár train station within just three days. Only a dozen families remained in Nagykovácsi – and as replacements, Hungarians from Upper Hungary arrived as part of the Hungarian-Czechoslovak population exchange agreement. (Smaller numbers of new residents also came from Transylvania and Jászság.)

On the village’s main street (starting towards Budapest), the S sign marks the path, but we change it to the P signs at the Mayor’s Office building. We leave the main street on the left and pass the modern-looking Reformed church. Behind it spreads a wide space in the otherwise densely built village, giving a view of the Szénás group hills. We walk along Bánya Street – its name recalling coal mining on the edge of the Pilis coal basin, launched in the mid-19th century to meet industrializing Budapest’s fuel needs. Numerous galleries were drilled into the Zsíros Hill group (one of them linking Nagykovácsi and Pilisszentiván borders as a tunnel); the Tisza slope mine and the Heisler slope mine opened nearby. The former was abandoned after a few years for economic reasons (in the 1920s), while the latter was deepened for research purposes but was closed by the authorities before mining could start due to a fatal accident.

People on the Szénás hills

A steadily ascending, substantial walk awaits us among the houses climbing on the slope. After a left turn, trees finally take over the place of walls, and we climb a steep path through park-like woods. The area enjoys increased protection, which is necessary in such a sensitive place: Nagykovácsi’s excellent location and the building development on the slopes tempting with panoramic plots would pose a serious threat to the extremely rare species hidden in the Szénás group.

The landscape itself is unique: pine groups, dense, winding oak woods, and tiny meadows alternate uphill. At a junction, the Blue Trail arrives, and although our path leads left on the K sign, there is a short detour ahead to visit the site of the former Nagy-Szénás tourist house. The building was originally intended as a shelter (for skiing times), but the needs grew during the design, and finally (in 1924) the Workers’ Physical Training Association started building a mountain lodge at the protected point of the hillside. Not without effort: lacking major funding, members initially built with stone quarried on-site and carried construction material themselves; later they pressed bricks from locally mined clay (by hand brick press). The building, fitting into the landscape, became very popular and was expanded. Last, in 1934, the characteristic glazed-wall restaurant was completed, and since then, a caretaker permanently resided in the building, which operated continuously. Unfortunately, its decline mirrored that of similar native buildings: nationalized in 1949, its condition soon deteriorated. It was eventually abandoned, looted, and after filming of the series “One and a Half Million Steps in Hungary,” even its ruins were demolished, under the pretext of being a site of anti-government conspiracies.

High mountain atmosphere at the city border

The K sign heads towards a cheerier destination: the top of Nagy-Szénás. Emerging from the forest, it feels as if you have dropped into the alpine tundra zone, with trees disappearing, and the stony, gravelly path leading to the summit embracing an ever wider landscape in the view. It is hard to compare the sight to anything else: the mountain’s rugged slopes are patched by oak woods, elsewhere by the pine peaks recalling higher mountains, above them the silken green dome of Nagy-Szénás rises. Below lies Nagykovácsi basin, behind it the highest point of the Buda Hills, the back of Nagy-Kopasz, and turning right, the dark peak of Kutya Hill, of similar height, towers. To the north, the Gerecse’s Hegyes-kő and Nagy-Gete appear, along with the entire Pilis range. Recognizable are the rocky ridge of Kétágú Hill, the Pilis Summit’s mass, the flat Hosszú Hill, and the two peaks of Kevélyek. Behind them rises the Visegrád Mountains, and to the northeast (on clear days), the hills of the Mátra appear ice-covered. Naturally, the closest heights are not hidden either: the Hármashatár Hill group already directs the gaze towards Budapest, and the lookout-adorned János Hill, and even the angular Hárs Hill can be easily recognized.

What is the reason for this unique landscape, dominated by Nagy-Szénás offering panoramic views? Looking back to the starting point of the process giving the answer, we can say it is due to deforestation. The vast forest cleared for the ravenous lime burning was used for grazing by the local population (before the phylloxera plague, viticulture was also present), so the summit remained grassy. Moreover, the increasingly eroded soil could not regenerate well because the dolomite building the mountain crumbles well (turns into gravel), but its decay is slow, so soil formation occurs slowly under difficult conditions. Therefore, vegetation can only establish slowly – typically only herbaceous plants because thicker roots have nothing to cling to. These dolomite scree grasslands also host true botanical rarities: worldwide, the area is the only habitat for Pilis flax, and in Hungary, the Kitaibel plantain occurs only here. The Szénás mountain range is a strictly protected area due to these plants, and its European significance is evidenced by it receiving the Europe Diploma in 1995.

Protection and hunting

The attention to nature conservation directed at the Szénás is not new; Káán Károly proposed the creation of a "reservation" as early as the early 1930s, and the owner of Pilisszentiván, Count Imre Karátsonyi, also took measures to protect the Pilis flax. (The species was actually described much earlier, in the 1890s, by Vince Borbás, a renowned botanist of flora around Budapest.) The area officially received protection only in 1951. An interesting and useful note for interpreting early conservation reasons is found in the 1934 tourist guide (edited by Dr. János Vigyázó), which mentions in fine print about a part of the mountain range north of Nagy-Szénás, still closed to tourists today, that the Devil’s Tower and Little Devil’s Tower are "restricted areas rigorously guarded on Sundays and holidays. Partly plantations, partly hunting grounds." According to the description, visiting requires a permit, which is sometimes granted if the tourist requests it at least one week in advance at the Karátsonyi Palace in Budapest.

The mountain that no one cared about

While on the steeper southern slopes exposed to erosion, open dolomite scree grasslands can be found (i.e. the rock protrudes from the vegetation cover), on the gentler northern slopes closed rock grasslands predominate. Around the summits occur atmospherically pleasing fescue steppe meadows, while visually jarring but non-native pine forests are remnants of earlier deforestation. The K sign precisely pushes downward one of the steep southern slopes from the mountain. The view of Nagykovácsi is gradually hidden by trees, and our level path is accompanied by a chain of spacious, well-situated meadows. At one of them, the paths diverge; our hike continues straight on the K+ signs. We pass an old boundary stone (there will be more opportunities to see it) and gradually the wide meadows attracting game disappear as we enter the mixed forest of Kutya Hill. Tall beeches also appear in the often impenetrable dense woods, indicating that we are wandering in a relatively high northern slope. On early military survey maps, the mountain was still named Hundsberg in German; later this disappeared and instead the name Bükkös Hill appeared (initially called Buchwald in German). There is also some uncertainty about Kutya Hill’s height: while the 3rd military survey (late 19th century) marked it as 569 meters, the highest point of the entire range, most 20th-century tourist maps do not indicate any height. Since then (thanks to modern technology) it is known that with 559 meters, it is the 2nd highest point in the Buda Hills, likely only centimeters shy of Nagy-Kopasz.

The unchanged mountain region

We descend again on the opposite slope of the summit and the forest opens once more: from a splendid meadow we look out towards the highest part of Gerecse. Along a chain of clearings on a pleasant bike path, we arrive at a wildlife protection fence (aimed to protect valuable plants from excessive game trampling and browsing). Passing through its gate, we are already on the S marked Fehér út (White Road) (to the right). Its name comes from the constantly emerging dolomite color, which builds up the whole area and colors the bike tracks. In the easily graveling rock, streams carved deep ditches during wetter periods in Earth’s history, creating a particularly rugged, lively relief zone here in the western tip of the mountain range. The sparsely wooded area sprinkled with meadows was still a closed hunting ground in the second half of the 20th century, where to this day this single hiking trail provides the only entry opportunity. There remains a lack of signs and infrastructure for hikers here – now supposedly for nature conservation reasons. The grasslands provide shelter to rare plant species (e.g., the King Stephen carnation), while the unique microclimate conditions of the narrow valleys’ rocky slopes also create special habitat conditions.

The mix of pine patches, oak woods, and clearings creates a characterful corner of the Buda Hills, where the effect of the nearby big city is barely felt anymore. At one point a narrow path calls left; a few meters ahead, a ridge offers a magnificent view towards the Zsámbék Basin and Gerecse (Velence Hills appear on the left, and in the distance the Vértes and Bakony). The hiking trail descends a bit and along former royal estate boundary stones, and with an unrelenting beautiful route, leads among dry steppe meadows. We walk up to a new elongated clearing from where we can again admire the distant hills of Gerecse, see clearly the long-extended Vértes, and emerging from behind it the Bakony. The Velence Hills can be identified as two small mounds to the right; above the tree foliage, the back of Pilis Summit appears. The rugged dolomite rocky slopes bending to Mária Valley also emerge, revealing not only on the map the area's special steepness.

Nagykovácsi’s Devil

From here the hiking trail heads towards Perbál (through a wooded section, then across fields at the village edge), but we turn back towards Nagykovácsi. We follow the same route, but this time do not conquer Kutya Hill, instead following the S sign. We descend through dense woods that fade out at the boundary of Nagykovácsi. On the left a fruit orchard is hidden by a row of trees, on the right the thicket of Forrás-dűlő stretches out – named for being the origin of the Ördög (Devil) ditch (formerly Kovácsi) stream, one of the Buda Hills’ most defining watercourses. Twice it breaks through the eagle cliffs: at Budapest’s border in a gorge (Remete Gorge), near the Hűvösvölgy bus station it carved a gentler but narrow trench (since covered by construction, hiding the original forms). Later, at Pasarét, the stream is forced under the city and flows into the Danube at the Erzsébet Bridge.

A long walk follows along a stony cart road until we reach the edge of old Nagykovácsi village. From here, staying on Kossuth Lajos Street, we arrive back at our starting point in about 10-15 minutes, Nagykovácsi center, where several restaurants can help recover from the tiredness of the hike.