Time travel among meadows and ruins

Itinerary

• We start from the bus stop on the P trail, which turns towards the Kinizsi Castle.
• From the Kinizsi Castle, we follow the National Blue Trail K marking westwards.
• After leaving Nagyvázsony, we turn left on the KL trail to the ruins of the St. Michael Monastery.
• From there, we return to the K trail and continue to the ruins of the Tálod monastery.
• From the ruins, we walk back to the Z trail, where we turn right.
• We follow it to the border of Nemesleányfalu, where a path branches off to the right to the old cemetery. Here we find the charming ruins of the St. James Church.
• We return to the Z trail, then walk on it to the center of Nagyvázsony, where we turn right on the P trail, returning to the bus stop.

Detailed description of the route

Our culturally and historically worthy walk begins in the center of Nagyvázsony, by the Vázsonyi-séd creek at the bus stop of the bus terminal. While following the P trail to the famous Kinizsi Castle, it is worth recalling the colorful history of the village: the name Nagyvázsony, mentioned as early as the beginning of the 13th century in charters, probably originates from the Vázson family, who lost the estate as one member, Salamon, did not participate in King Andrew II’s infamous crusade. Later, the estate returned to their descendants, the Vezseny family, but when Vezsenyi László died as King Matthias’s envoy to Italy, the Nagyvázsony estate reverted to the crown. Matthias then gifted it in 1472 to his legendary general, Pál Kinizsi, who according to legend was a miller’s apprentice in one of the local mills when he found the king’s famous glass of water on a heavy millstone.

Historians do not give much credit to this charming anecdote, as Kinizsi was likely born not here but in Banat or Bihar and was from a lesser noble, rather than peasant, family. However, it is a fact that he played a defining role in the development of Nagyvázsony, which had by then risen to town status. Thanks to Matthias’s favor, he obtained valuable estates, as the settlement, inhabited likely from the Stone and Bronze Ages, was located at the meeting point of two important Roman and medieval military roads. The castle, which we will soon reach, was begun by the Vezseny family as a new center replacing their lost Zádorvár castle, under the name Vázsonykő. They built the famous 25 m high five-story residential tower, which today is the most beautiful Gothic monument of its kind in Hungary. The palace and imposing barbican, however, were born during the Kinizsi era.

After Kinizsi’s death in 1494, barely a year later, his widow, Benigna Magyar, married Croatian Ban Mark Horváth of Kamicsác, who also died shortly afterward. Her next husband, the violent heir hunter Gergely Kereky, died early, allegedly killed by the widow herself using the dizzying height of the castle bastion’s neck. She was later sentenced to death but was eventually pardoned in honor of Kinizsi’s memory, though she lost her fortune—and thus Nagyvázsony too.

Although built on flat terrain—primarily intended as an estate center rather than for defense—the walls of Vázsonykő castle endured several sieges over centuries. In 1490, Kinizsi, who never lost a battle according to legend, had to recapture it from Austrian troops of Duke Maximilian, and in 1554 it was occupied by the Turks as part of military campaigns against Tihany and Csobánc. Although playing a minor role in the Rákóczi War of Independence, it escaped a planned explosion that doomed many others. Its ruin was simply caused by loss of significance; its later owners, the Zichy family, after the war built a more comfortable manor on the other side of the creek, which in recent decades operated as a hotel and the venue of the famous medieval Nagyvázsony Equestrian Games.

Since our route is short, we should definitely visit the castle! From the upper terrace of the residential tower, there is a breathtaking panorama of the Vázsonyi basin and the Bakony mountains.

The most romantic medieval ruins

From the castle, we depart along the National Blue Trail K marking. Leaving behind the houses of the settlement, we can ponder another anecdote: locals say it is linked to the saying “left behind the tap and the priest”, as in 1798 Csokonai Vitéz Mihály hurried away from his friend in Nagyvázsony, the Reformed preacher and poet Gergely Édes, upon learning of his muse Lilla’s marriage. A plaque on the wall of the Reformed church commemorates the friendship of the two poets, but the humorous poem of Sándor Petőfi about Csokonai, introducing the phrase “forgot the tap and the priest and everything”, is probably set not here but in Hajdúböszörmény.

From the noisy crowd around the castle, we suddenly enter the dense silence of the St. Michael Hill forest, leaving behind the village cemetery. At the end of the green corridor path marked KL opening to the left is another ancient ruin. As we step out from among the trees, a breathtaking sight opens before us: the spacious walls of the mighty Gothic church of St. Michael Monastery, supported by flying buttresses and columns, rise majestically over the oak forest, silent witnesses to stormy centuries. We are visiting one of the country’s most romantic monastery ruins, founded as a family burial site by Pál Kinizsi and his father-in-law, Balázs Magyar. The fortified complex, completed around 1485-1486, included a 31 m long polygonal sanctuary church and an attached multi-story monastery. According to legend, Kinizsi financed the construction from the ransom of a captive Turk.

He and Benigna Magyar’s second husband, Mark Horváth, were ultimately buried here. Their stone epitaphs were placed in their original graves: Kinizsi’s under the sanctuary, Horváth’s under a side nave. However, their eternal rest was disturbed when local lords blew up the monastery in 1552 after the fall of Veszprém—by then the monks had long fled—to prevent its capture by Turks.

Both graves were buried under the rubble, later disturbed by treasure hunters in the 18th century. Kinizsi’s exquisite red marble Renaissance tombstone underwent an adventurous journey: the Zichy estate managers embedded it in the old tower wall of the castle, then kept it in a granary before transferring it in 1849 to the garden of the family’s manor in Sárszentmihály. The face of the sarcophagus relief broke off and was lost en route; it was later discovered quite by chance by Ferenc Deák and Károly Tolnay. Unaware of its significance, Tolnay had it sealed inside his manor attic, where it was found and identified as Kinizsi’s stone portrait by the famous archaeologist Kálmán Darnay in 1911, about seventy years later. It was later moved to the stone collection of Budapest’s Fisherman’s Bastion, where the rest of the tombstone was kept—finally in 1957 the archaeologist István Éri, who was excavating Vázsonykő Castle, secured its return to Nagyvázsony. It still rests in the castle chapel, while Mark Horváth’s epitaph is displayed in the stone collection.

The Pauline Order’s St. Michael Monastery is also noted for valuable codices born here. Four books survive from the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, two of which were made especially for Benigna Magyar by the monks.

Along the Vázsonyi-séd creek

We return from the ruins to the K trail and continue toward the Vázsonyi-séd creek. Passing through the pleasantly cool hornbeam-oak forest of St. Michael Hill, we emerge onto a wide meadow shaded by moss and ivy-covered trees. We are at the meeting of Bakony and the Balaton Uplands; to the south, gentle slopes soothe the eye, while to the north, beyond the waving wheat fields stirred by the wind, the 599 m peak of Kab Hill appears, and we feel the fresh breath of the nearby mountains. Accompanied by the watchful gaze of proud heritage trees, we walk through groves across the meadow and reach the creek bank. Here, the local name for the streams applies; once, when it was more abundant, the Vázsonyi-séd powered the famous watermills of the Kapolcs Valley. A narrow, fairy-tale path winds through the hornbeam shade along the bank, ending in the sunlit, north-south oriented Tálod meadow.

To the left, more medieval remains hide in the forest: the ruins of St. Helena’s church. The east-facing, single-nave, towerless building on the northern slope of Kecske Hill was probably built in the 13th century as the village church of Tálod (Thalad), possibly in Romanesque style. The village, believed to lie on the far, northern bank of the creek based on archaeological finds of Árpád-era pottery shards, was abandoned by its inhabitants in 1548 during the Turkish threat and, unlike nearby Pula, was never resettled. The church ruins were only discovered in 1970 and preserved in 2007. Interestingly, its namesake, St. Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, lived in the 3rd-4th century and is also the protector of archaeologists, as legend holds that she found the Cross of Christ.

Continuing across the wonderful Tálodi Meadow, bordered on one side by pine forest, we steadily distance from the still visible Kab Hill behind us. Soon, our route is crossed by the Z trail, but we continue for a while on the K trail to admire more ruins. First, we notice a spacious stone basin built on the Kinizsi spring; it was likely created by the monastery’s first monks, whose settlement was made possible by this abundant spring. The stone basin belonged to the Tálod St. Elizabeth Monastery, comprised of three wings, covering an area of 36x32 m and surrounded by a 600 m long wall, located at its northwestern corner. The Pauline monks probably moved here towards the end of the 13th century, as a 1324 charter already mentions a finished church. Today, essentially only the solitary front wall stands; Rómer Flóris, who discovered the ruins in the second half of the 19th century, still saw its buttresses. In 1480, the Paulines handed the monastery over to the Franciscans, who moved to the St. Michael Monastery visited earlier, but local lords fearing the Turks blew this up as well in 1552. The dilapidated front wall is fenced off for safety, but a bench under the protective trees offers a perfect place for deep contemplation.

The wooden transformed little church

We walk back from the ruins to the Z trail established in 1954 on the 460th anniversary of Kinizsi’s death, and at the especially charming southern tip of Tálodi Meadow, where a fire pit is built, we turn right. After crossing a tiny, rather symbolic log bridge over the lightly flowing creek, we soon step out of the beech grove shade and walk on meadows on the ridge of Kecske Hill. Opposite, the houses of Nagyvázsony, more precisely Nemesleányfalu, and the distinctive double-helmeted tower of the evangelical church come into view.

Nemesleányfalu was formerly an independent settlement, known as Predium Lean, mentioned as early as 1082. By 1448, it was referred to with a Hungarian name as Leányfalu, but it was depopulated during the Turkish era and only repopulated later by soldiers from Nagyvázsony Castle, who built their homes at the current location, farther from the original settlement, to avoid the landlord’s power. In 1950, by ministerial decree, Nemesleányfalu and Nagyvázsony were united.

After the Z trail turns south then east again at a stone bridge, we take an unmarked path branching to the right that leads to the original site of Nemesleányfalu. We find a cemetery there, and amid old, in places already fallen gravestones, a true wonder: a little church transformed into wood. It seems as if this brave little building has decided to come alive and grow a canopy, defying time. Thick, intertwined ivy arms must once have embraced a tree trunk, but now, forming a fairy tale blend, they support the building together, intertwining their fate in a fatal mutual dependence. Since no excavation has yet shed light on its past, all we know is that the church was probably built in the 12th-13th century and dedicated to the village’s patron saint, St. James.

Returning to the Z trail, we soon arrive at Nemesleányfalu. The settlement suffered not only during the Turkish period but also saw the storm of history at the end of World War II in spring 1945, when literally two fires met: the Germans fired from Tótvázsony, the Russians from Pula, with several buildings falling victim here as well. German soldiers hiding in the house opposite the church were unable to escape the Russians.

Following the Z then the P trails, we return through the streets of Nagyvázsony to close the loop.