Bátorkő Vára

We have already enjoyed some beautiful walks around Várpalota (9 km from our house). The Bakony Mountains are vast and diverse, with lots of flowers in spring. The Hungarians themselves also like to come here for walks: the paths are well maintained and signposted. In Hungarian, that is (but with European subsidies, according to the information boards). After downloading Mapy, we can now even find many cycling and walking trails online. This is in contrast to Google Maps, which has often misled us, showing untraceable or impassable roads that Google claims you can drive along.

My new favourite is the walk to the ruins of a castle: Bátorkő vára. This castle fell into disuse when the ‘new’ one was built in Várpalota (in the 15th century). It is now really remote in the forest.

On the way there, we followed the ‘red cross’ walking trail over the ridge and after the castle we took the lower ‘red stripe’ cycle path back. A good 10 km: an ideal afternoon trip. April and October are definitely the best months for walking here: often sunny but not too hot.

And once again, it turned out that some of the plants I had lovingly and laboriously transplanted grow here in the wild: blue irises, vinca, blue grape hyacinths, lilacs and whole fields of wild garlic. New discovery: when Mazy walks through a field of wild garlic, you can smell it overwhelmingly… but fortunately, the smell doesn’t linger.