Nagyvázsony – Városlőd (OKT-07)

Nagyvázsony – Kab-hegy

As a start, it is worth at least walking around the castle towering on the side of Nagyvázsony, which has the special feature that it is not above the village but stands on the side of the Vázsonyi-séd valley. The trade route between the Bakony and the Balaton Uplands could be well monitored from here, but the main function of the small fortress was not this: it was built as a residential tower in the 15th century after a member of the Vezsenyi (or Vázsonyi) clan, who owned the area, lost the nearby Zádor Castle. As a military engineer stated centuries later, the fortress protected by a swamp “has its enemies right at its sides: namely those heights that dominate it, (...) besides they can be targeted.”

Among its many owners, Kinizsi Pál was decisive, to whom King Matthias gifted it after the death of the last Vezsenyi – the castle flourished under his reign. Several explosion plans were made, but they never happened, and towards the end of its history, it lost its significance, and the locals dismantled its stones. It was first reconstructed in the 1950s, and the modern elements, different from the rest, were added during the renovation in the late 2010s.

The nearest stamp to the Kéktúra is found on the wall of the bistro on the opposite side of the square near the castle, but you can also stamp at the Kinizsi Brewery beer garden. From the hillside, you can nicely see where we are heading in the next hours: straight ahead rises the cone of Kab-hegy. The flat landscape below hints that the route will be easy but without any particular excitement.

The Kéktúra descends through a wooded ridge to the bank of the Vázsonyi-séd; the small stream is barely perceptible, mostly indicated by the ruined buildings of a mill. On the side of the building on our left, a stylized mill wheel can be seen, built together with the interior exhibition area for the 2023 European Capital of Culture event series. According to tradition, Kinizsi Pál worked here as a miller's apprentice. In the Vázsonyi-séd valley – called Eger-víz in its lower section – there are quite a few other mill ruins, visited by the “Mills and Springs Trail” nature trail created between Vigántpetend and Monostorapáti.

We rise out of the valley and reach the main road on a street; after crossing it, we start the initially rather slow ascent to Kab-hegy. The forest edge is still far away, we slowly ascend on the field, and two things dominate the view: looking back, the Kinizsi castle standing on the opposite side of the valley, and in front of us, the spreading massif of Kab-hegy with its two transmission towers on the top. Rarely is there such a close logical connection between the shape of an area and its formation: today's Kab-hegy is the remnant of an active volcano that started 8 million years ago and lasted nearly 6 million years. It is a typical shield volcano because the thin basaltic lava spread around the crater without great explosions, building up the spreading, flat, gently sloping shape.

On this terrain, endurance of monotony is more needed than fitness. After a smaller zigzag, we face the peak and climb almost straight ahead. The landscape also changes as we enter the oak forest, whose beautiful, natural relations are interrupted by a grid of clearings. The chessboard-like clearings also reveal their boredom by their names, as they are numbered and lettered similarly to large cities in the USA: the Kéktúra climbs in the 6th clearing, crossing clearings H, G, and F. The most beautiful corner of the ascent is a small pasture surrounded by forest. The steepness tightens increasingly, and the transmission tower also appears ahead. After crossing the logging road, we turn left by climbing over a wildlife protection fence and cross a young, growing forest patch.

On the western side of the hill, we have to climb a ladder again, then on a forest road crossing shrubbery, reach the foot of the peak. We turn right onto the final straight, and the 599-meter peak makes us sweat again here, in the former crater center where the thickest basalt layer accumulated, and the slope is already steep. Looking back, however, there is a nice view of other highlands of the Southern Bakony, including Lugos Hill, recognizable from its lookout.

The Kéktúra turns north, bypassing the peak, accessible from the asphalt road by turning right on the K▲ mark. This is a kind of “mandatory” detour because above the southeastern break of Kab-hegy stands the wooden Kinizsi Pál Lookout, built in 2013 on the site of its predecessor erected in 1937, which was demolished during the construction of the transmission tower. The wooden structure is just tall enough to overlook the forests of the Southern Bakony and the Balaton Uplands, and Balaton appears at several points among the flat ridges.

Returning to the Kéktúra, we start the descent no shorter or more exciting than the ascent. We follow the asphalt road; on the right side of the straight section after the wide right turn stands a small building whose wall bears the stamp. In the forest plantation behind the fence operated in the 1950s the 17-bed Kinizsi Pál tourist house supplied with spring water.

Kab-hegy – Úrkút

We follow the straight asphalt road for a long time until the K marks finally turn left, but here a new – although forest – straight follows. From a forestry road, we turn at some larger basalt stones stacked next to each other to a fence, which we bypass on a narrow path. The dense forest mixed with pines hides the Tönkölyös sinkhole, a rare phenomenon on volcanic rock: the basalt lava of Kab-hegy flowed on limestone, and where it surrounded the former surface heights, the limestone remained “bare.” Over millions of years, runoff water dissolved it, forming depressions and opening sinkholes on the surface.

Leaving the fence, we turn onto a horizontal embankment rising from the flat terrain in a charming forest environment. This was the embankment of one of the narrow-gauge tracks serving the transport of Kab-hegy's wood and the area's former mines until 1953. We walk along the edge of fields until we reach Úrkút among trees, where benches and tables near the well inspiring the name of the settlement offer rest opportunities. In the village, a glassworks was established in the 18th century, later its everyday life was shaped by manganese ore mining. The Kéktúra leads into the center – at the bus stop, we find the stamp at the restaurant’s entrance standing at the fork.

Úrkút – Városlőd

Climbing the street, a gate marks the Úrkút ancient karst area at its end. Rounded rocks and pines stand between resting places, next to which stairs go down to the depths of dark gray limestone walls. The narrow crevice is remnants of a former tropical karst area with huge depressions once buried and later filled by rivers with alluvium – including manganese ore. The area was later covered by other layers, but the dark limestone cones pierced the surface. The black material was also used by potters to glaze their vessels and colored glass during the local glassworks operation, but larger scale extraction started after World War I when it was found while searching for coal. Since the manganese ore was mined mostly with hand tools (instead of blasting), the original shapes were preserved, and it has been under nature protection since 1951. (During the exploration and extraction of Bakony bauxite, other ancient karst formations were found but were filled with barren material.)

The Kéktúra turns from the stairs and leads out of the former mining hole among mossy rock outcrops. We walk briefly on the edge of Úrkút and finally leave the village behind along a fenced pasture. After a few small clearings, we descend into a relatively young but beautiful, closed beech forest in the Csollányos valley, arriving at a clearing. Before the Kéktúra turns left onto the access road, we can rest on a bench under a huge, ancient, and dried oak tree on the right (Güszi rest). The valley's name originates from nettle, which indicates that the forest was opened long ago on the moist, wide valley floor. A narrow-gauge railway operated here at the beginning of the 20th century, but today there are no buildings in the valley except the road. The chain of groves with legacy trees and long grass meadows and the two steep slopes already give a taste of the atmosphere of the Old Bakony (or High Bakony) rising ahead of us. In the shallow depression on the side, there is everything as a result of previous logging and afforestation: beech, oak, hornbeam, and ash.

At the border of Városlőd, we turn right and reach the bank of the Torna creek crossing a meadow. At the bottom of the steep slope, the trail of Kéktúra finds its path in a narrow place; the creek is initially hidden by dense vegetation but later runs directly beside the path. Although the route leads on the outskirts of the settlement, thanks to wooden fences, mixed lush forest, and the slowly flowing creek, this is the most natural feeling section (and the only real path) of the hike. In Városlőd, we cross the railway tracks and walk long through the settlement to the stamp. We pass by the large Catholic church, whose interesting feature is that it was built on the foundations of one of the largest Carthusian monasteries in Hungary. (Which the monks started building east of the village from the stones of the abandoned Hölgykő castle.) After Turkish destruction, Swabian settlers arrived in the area, and although most of them were deported after World War II, their former presence is still palpable in the settlement’s character.

The main street branches at the eastern end of Városlőd, where two stamps can be found: one in the window of the pub and one on the information board standing across the street.