a hiking path up to a viewpoint in the keszthely mountains, on the kerek hill.
while we spent most of the sunny days in zalakaros, we tried to use the more rainy/cloudy days for adventuring and day-tripping. on one such cloudy day we decided to check out the balaton uplands, which is a hilly area on the north side of lake balaton that's known for its geological formations, basically. it consists of 6 protected areas that vary in their landscapes. for example the region just above the balaton lake is dotted with extinct volcanos and mountains, while other regions are full of karsts or a sea of rocks, or - like the kis-balaton suggests - full of bogs and swamps. the many diverse landscapes are what makes the balaton uplands so special and interesting and if i'd been there all alone i would've made it a goal to drive to various destinations every second day or so. i still haven't seen a glimpse of what the whole region has to offer, even though we visited it so many times. while i don't plan to visit hungary in a very near future, i still hope that i will return one day and then get my chance at exploring more. one thing i know for sure, though, that whenever i return, my main stay will be around lake balaton, because my heart is very attached to it. while i cherish our time in zalakaros and its soft hills dotted with vineyards, i am much more enamoured with lake balaton. i guess it's the big body of water that draws me near, almost reminding me of the ocean. while many call lake balaton a boring bath tub ( because it's not very cold in the summer and it's quite flat - you can walk quite a while until you finally reach lower depths ), for me it is not at all boring. lake balaton always gave me a special kind of relaxation whenever we visited, a refuge from the busy shores and family/friends gatherings. i will have a post ready for lake balaton in the future, and probably talk more about my love of it, so stay tuned ❤
for now, let's move on with our day trip, namely to the keszthely mountains on the northwestern tip of lake balaton, near the city of keszthely. we actually wanted to learn more about the volcanic history of the balaton uplands, and thought we find it in the keszthely mountains, but these mountains are not yet part of the volcanic area. it is protected as an area that offers dolomite bedrocks and is home to special flora and fauna. the area we explored in the keszthely mountains was the kerek hill. you can find a very high look-out there that provides a wonderful view on keszthely bay. you can also check out an old quarry and explore lush woods.
as we parked our car on the 'big meadow' - a plateau not far away from the view-point i talked about earlier - we were greeted by a man who tried to give us tips on what to explore - in hungarian. with the so-called 'hands and feets'-language we managed to understand that there was a short hike up to the viewpoint, apparently not very difficult and we took that advice. as it turned out, that short hike was steep as fuck and very slippery/full of stones, but even though you could hear some grumbles coming from my mom and my brother, we still managed to pull through ;) and the hike served some lovely little moments, ending with the reward of a great view. afterwards we discovered that there was a path that was waaaaaaayyyy less steep and exhausting and i was finally understanding that the dude down on the meadow was either purposefully sending us that way to have a laugh or that we misunderstood him from the get-go 😂 either way, we took that path back and ended up discovering the old quarry, which was my personal highlight up on the kerek hill.
we spotted a cute teenage lizard - a european green lizzard to be exact. their colour will turn into a deep emerald one and they also develop a turquoise blue throat in mating season. pretty cool little fellas. and he posed really happily for me, which made me incredibly happy, too!
the slippery slope up the hill towards the look-out tower. was especially fun with sandals on the feet ( that some of us wore 😂 )
i haven't made a photo of the tower itself ( just another wooden tower, which you can find many of in hungary and which almost all look basically the same ). but this is the first glimpse on keszthely bay, with gyenesdiás - a little village adjacent to keszthely - right in front of you.
keszthely city. this city is the biggest one in the balaton region, with around 21 000 inhabitants. it's a cultural hub of course, especially known for the festetics palace you can glimpse on the upper right, but also for several churches and a convent, the parish of our lady of hungary ( can be seen in the middle of the picture, with a big red roof ). the city is quite worth seeing, and we visited it a lot in the past, but this time around we only went there once to go visit the balaton museum and we didn't see anything else. i would've liked to, though, as my memory of it is understandably faded. well, but family conferences decided a little different this time, and i sort of obliged, even though i was a little bit downcast about it.
another view over the bay - where gyenesdiás and keszthely meet. it was a misty day, with the occasional drizzle, but all in all we stayed dry over the course of the day.
gyenesdiás view again, and on the left you can see the leftovers of a very big quarry. up until that point we didn't even know it existed, but upon seeing it we decided to try to find it and maybe have a look at it. and it was around that time, too, that we discovered there was an easier way up to the tower, the one you see down below. dude on the big meadow was probably having a day over his given instructions to us 😂
a view down on the lush green woods. you can also see the big meadow, which is used for festivities, gatherings and more.
i gave keszthely another glance and decided to try to take a photo of festetics castle. i like how it is sandwiched between a socialist highrise and a futuristic-looking water tower. festetics castle is probably the most visited palace in the whole of hungary, and very famous because of the festetics family that erected it. this noble family defined hungary for many centuries and therefore the palace is of great cultural importance. the castle's building was first started in 1745 and completed in 1880. it's a neo-baroque building par excellence and looks a bit like your typical french palace.
the keszthely mountains - heavily wooded and quite beautiful. we then climbed down again to follow the easier trail, for real ;)
ash tree with young fruits. i didn't know that the tips of the fruits could be reddish - it made this tree look a little alien to me. i was quite surprised to learn it was actually a very common european tree ;P
leaves of the european smoke tree. that tree is not so common in germany ( even though it can be found - i remember i even found one up in the german north some years ago! ). i am quite enamoured with the round leaves and its inflorescence.
the feathery texture of the inflorescence catches droplets and looks so heavenly because of it. imagine walking through a landscape full of these trees and bushes! i imagine a wonderful serene scenery, glistening and glittering when a stray ray of sunshine meets the twigs. this is a fairytale plant for sure!
raindrops galore!
the early fruit of the alder buckthorn. red sometimes indicates that you should not eat a fruit. it is true for the alder buckthorn as well!
the fruit of the black bryony - a ranking plant. the fruits are also toxic!
after our little foray into the local plant life, we arrived at the old stone quarry. and boy, what a wonderful place this was!
the quarry once provided dolomite rocks, which is very visible now, of course. the place offers a great insight to these rocks and you not only see it with your eyes, but also are able to walk into the former quarry these days and examine it more closely.
flora upon soil and soil upon rocks. a really interesting cross-section.
the contrast of the green trees against the grey rock was so visually pleasing to me. it looks like water and soil was running down these slopes and hollowed out several gullies and therefore gave nature a chance to grow roots inside the quarry.
erosion still seems to be part of the transformation of the quarry into a natural environment - as these trees prove that fell down the slope. also, there's loose rocks everywhere, so i guess the scarp face is also continually changing.
i stepped inside the quarry geotope to check it out more closely, while my family waited at the border. it seems that there is a very good acoustic down in the crater, but i only learned that after i checked it out and we were home again. i probably would've tried out shouting or whistleing or something, haha.
oh god, all the different structures 😍 i can't even explain to you why rock formations have this immense allure to me. really, how could i even explain? i just like them, simple as that.
found some crows climbing on the slopes. and those slopes, dear friends, were not gradually and softly going downhill. nope. they were super steep. i didn't know crows could do that. like some fucking ibexes. cribexes?
it met up with another one! pretty cool sighting this moment was, yup!
this beauty grew on the borders of the quarry. it is of mysterious heritage, meaning, i didn't find a thing about it online.
various water channels were imbedded into the rocky underground, and left behind in them were twigs and branches, possibly carried down with rainfalls.
😍
also, some random shoes could be found in there as well! hopefully the dude who lost them made it out alive 😜
there were some huge forest ants running around on the ground as well, but i failed to take photos of them. just imagine many little ant trails everywhere ;)
yellow and grey is a good combination and coincidentally my shoes were of the same colours! again, i am left with no name for these blossoms.
the whitest path i ever walked. this was almost chalk-like!
a lot of black pines were growing in the quarry. we soon decided to walk back to the car and check out a nearby castle, so we left this wonderful place.
dolo rock outcrop.
fruit of the european spindle. it's called pfaffenhütchen in german, which means bishop's cap. fitting, right? it will turn int a pink curiousity later in life.
our next stop was, like i mentioned above, a castle, szigliget castle! it is not very far away from the volcanic mountains of the balaton uplands, one of them being the badacsony. from szigliget castle you have a wonderful view over this region and lake balaton, which i'm going to show you in a sec.
szigliget castle was built in 1262 by benedectine monks on a basalt hill, a remnant of the volcanic action in the pliocene era ( about 3 to 5 million years ago ). it went through a lot of changes after that, had many owners and had to endure a lot of destruction over the centuries. these days its ruins overlook the balaton uplands and lake balaton spectacularly.
as you can see here. this is into the direction of tapolca, and the two most distinct hills you see here are the 415 meter high szent györgy hegy ( st. george hill ) and csobánc hill ( 376 meters high ). the flatlands surrounding all the volcanic hills were once part of a bigger lake balaton ( like the kis-balaton ), but drained in the process of populating the region.
the open air theater on the castle grounds is a breathtaking venue! saint george's hill is in the background. they have a lot of activities up on the castle, like medieval markets, concerts and historical reenactments.
the weathered castle ruins were quite a sight - old castles always impress me immensely. i mean, how can they not? the sheer age of it all is mindblowing.
some cannons looking for enemies. these days it seems to be rather infrequent, though ;)
peaking through the merlons of the castle and seeing that distinct feature of szent györgy hill / csobánc hill again! that particular view really made an impression on me, as you have probably gathered by now ;)
the castle and a view onto lake balaton. the castle will be reconstructed in 2019 and officially re-opened in 2020 - with several intermissions thrown inbetween so that tourists still have the chance to visit this remarkable sight.
szent györgy / csobánc hill yet again! and another volcano hill made its way into the picture: gulács hegy! it's a 393 meter high hill not far away from the badacsony mountain - basically the most famous volcanic cone of lake balaton.
lake balaton, keszthely bay with balatongyörök and a teeny-tiny bit of szigliget village.
let me introduce to you: the badacsony mountain ( 437 m ). it's the poster child of the southern balaton shore and probably also the most well-known geological sight of lake balaton. its flat-top peak is very distinguishable from other hills in the area and resembles a volcano most, in my opinion. ( of course volcanos can look very different from each other, but this feels like the real deal to me, which is probably very subjective, haha ). oh, and one more thing i learned about these hills: they are called monadnocks ( or inselberg - which translates into island mountains ) - which basically means that they are very prominent hills in a mainly flat environment, protruding out of the grounds like huge mushrooms ( or islands, lol ).
the castle top again.
there were several nooks and crannies that showed medieval sceneries such as a kitchen.
right next to it was a living room / bed room.
the tiled stove was absolutely gorgeous! in general i could vividly imagine myself living in this room. it looked really cozy. perfect witch material!
there was a well outside that was littered with coins. shiny!
oh, those views were priceless, i can assure you that. saint george's hill greeting you from afar!
there was also a little castle chapel on the highest point of the castle hill. benedectine chorals were played in the background and made it a little more mysterious, despite the rather modern interiors.
the entry to the kitchen.
above the roofs of szigliget castle. i know, there are not many roofs left 😅 but that view on szent györgy hill is still the same! breath-taking.
csobánc & gulács landscape ❤
lichen growing on rocks. i loved the texture of these old basalt bedrocks.
rainwater downpipe - medieval style. our visit was coming to an end slowly and i was really glad that we had decided to check this castle out, as it's just simply a pure stunner. and showed me again that my heart belongs to the balaton region. there's a special place for it in my heart that no right-wing politics can diminish or sweep out. these old castles, the wonderful landscapes, the blue water of the balaton, everything just makes me love it even more and keep it in positive memory.
before we left i shot a quick photo of one castle inhabitant - a wall lizard! i do love its spindly hands & feet ❤
and a curious-looking plant caught my eye just as we were about to leave. and if you look closer, can you glimpse the ghostly white spider? that's a thomisus onustus - a crab spider that can change colours according to their surroundings. in hungary they are called white crab spiders. i haven't seen any plants like this before, though and couldn't find a thing about it. still lookin' super cute, though!
stay tuned for more hungary pictures!
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