Big circle in Tihany

Itiner

• From the Tihany boat station, head south on the Z sign
.
• Turn right at the saddle on the other side of the Kerék hill onto the Z+ sign.
• After 200 m, turn left on the ZT sign to discover a series of hot springs.
• On reaching the S sign, turn left towards the cliff called the Sleeper's Ledge.
• Descending from the Nyereg hill, we take the S▲ sign to the right and climb up to the Apáti hill.
• From the hill, take the Z▲ sign to the left.
• Turn left at the lakeside and the boat station is only a few hundred metres away.

About the hike in detail

Start from the boat station

From the Tihany boat station, head south on the Z sign. Leaving the inhabited area, we climb up to the hill of Akasztó, named after the abbey which was granted the right to execute and arrest evildoers on its estates by King Sigismund in 1417. This hill is also associated with the fishing that was only practised in Tihany, and which is beautifully described by Herman Otto. In the fishing of the "seen fish", the "hill-walker", a member of the fishing bush guided his companions from the coastal hilltops towards the migrating shad.

In the meantime, we pass a beautiful lookout point with a panorama of the eastern basin of Lake Balaton from its cliffs. Descending from the hill, the trail leads along Kossuth Street for a short stretch, then turns right into the forest, where a short climb takes you past the Tihany Geophysical Observatory, founded in 1955, to the top of the Kerék hill. Passing the Antenna Hungária site, turn right at the saddle on the other side of the hill on the Z+ sign, then after 200 m turn left on the ZT sign to discover a series of hot springs.

The gEjzirit Field

The geyser field covers an area of about 60 hectares southwest of the Inner Lake. For hundreds of thousands of years after the extinction of the Tihany volcanoes, the large amount of hot molten rock trapped beneath the surface continued to heat its surroundings, while the gases it contained (carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, etc.) flowed upwards through the crack network of the rocks. During their journey, they were absorbed by the groundwater seeping downwards, turning it into an acidic chemistry that dissolved, among other things, calcium and iron from the deep rocks. It was from the boiling waters that the main mass of the peninsula's geyserite rock was precipitated. Not all of it, however, because the sediments of the warm-water lakes, which were subsequently reconsolidated, also became geyserite. This highly diverse rock is mostly a mixture of freshwater limestone and hydroquartzite in varying proportions. The lower part of such strata is generally finely stratified, while the upper part shows a massive appearance depending on the rhythmicity of the weathering.

The heat sources of the peninsula were probably active at the end of the Pliocene Epoch, before the Ice Age, when the Lake Balaton basin did not yet exist. Because this relatively resistant, hard rock protected the loose Pannonian sediments beneath, traces of the "geyser cap" can be found on almost every hill in Tihany. Originally there were more than 150 cones on the peninsula, of which only 60-80 remain today. The rest have been mined and the material used, for example, in construction work. As they were formed along fault lines, most of them are clustered on the Long and Chser Hills, between the Inner Lake and the Sarcad Forest, in the geyser field area and between the Peak and the Nyereg Hills. Their relative height may have been a few tens of metres and their average base diameter less than 100 metres.

On reaching the S sign, turn left towards the ledge called the Sleeper's Ledge. This place, like the Akasztó hill, was also important for fishing for garda. Tihany has 62 known places for net hauling, which shows the skill of the Tihany fishermen who knew all the ins and outs of this ancient craft. After 700 m through the warm oaks of the Szarkádi forest, you reach another viewpoint, from where you will find the Tihany Lavender Forest School, which is about the same distance away. Passing the MOHOSZ holiday resort, you reach the next viewpoint with a magnificent panorama on the side of Csúcs Hill beyond the Gurbicsa hill.

The Peak

Mountain Csúcs may have been formed during the third eruptive phase of the Tihany volcanism, during which the eruption centre migrated shallower and shallower, while already dry basement torrents were pouring down from it. In its southwestern wall, there are rock deposits up to 0.5-1 m thick.

The western side of the 25 m high and 150 m wide thermal spring cone at the top of Peak Hill opens into the Peak Hill Spring Cave, which has an oval-shaped entrance, 4.3 m long and 5.5 m high, with a chimney-like chimney opening to the surface. The occupying rock of the cavity is hydroquartzite with little lime, and between 3 and 4 m high it is solid chalcedony.

Continue past the Peak Hill cavity, 5 m long, which opens on the left side of the road, and then a short steep section to the top of the hill, where the remains of a pentagonal tower wall, about 10.2 × 10.2 m in area, surrounded by a double system of ditches, are found. It may have been a residential tower similar to the castle at Nagyvázsony, but smaller. This was probably the Tihany castle mentioned in 13th-14th century documents, which was used as a watchtower in the Turkish period. It has not yet been archaeologically excavated. There are also wall remains about 10 m below the tower, so there must have been a wall on the inner curve of the trench; above this there must have been walls. Fragments of pottery from the 12th and 13th centuries have been found at the base of the wall remains.

Mountain Nyereg

A pleasant path leads from the Peak Hill to the Nyereg Hill. The range forms a semicircular rim around the Rátai Gorge. It offers a fine view towards the Bozsai Bay, where the island of Losta (elsewhere Lustak) once stood. The islands around Tihany are mentioned in a charter from 1024, which King St Stephen donated to the Zalavár Abbey together with the fishing rights. At that time, the water level of the lake must have been about 1.5 metres lower than today. The first mention of this piece of land is found in a charter of 1211, as part of the coastal village of Losta, on which fishing huts were built. An earlier Bronze Age settlement and a Roman villa may have stood on this site, which was later swallowed up by Lake Balaton, and the remains of the walls of which still rest on the lake bed.

Siliceous geyserite, very well stratified, is deposited alongside and beneath the path on the volcanic rubble rocks. The vessel-like and chaotic structure of the plates suggests that silt sliding has occurred in the still ductile material, which may be due to water movement, earthquakes, etc. The oval chimneys, 50-70 cm in diameter, are the remnants of former spring cones through which large quantities of siliciclastic thermal water entered the crater lake, the margins of which were erupted along volcanotectonic faults. Because of its temperature, chemical composition and lack of oxygen, it could not have been inhabited by more advanced organisms. A 20-30 m long, 6-7 m high rock wall on the mountain also exposes the upper part of the volcaniclastite sequence and the overlying geyserite sequence. The lower section is similar in structure to the rocks of the Small Forest Roof, but here the strata slope towards the Rátai Gully, the former crater. Above it, laminites are found at the bottom, followed by hollow-textured, massive geysers at the top. Its specific structure is due to chemical precipitation, biogenic sediment, dissolved quartz and grains of earth. On the top of the mountain, columnar precipitates of small hot springs have been deposited. Hot water erupted in the middle of these and then precipitated out the dissolved material by flowing along the outer wall of the cone. Sometimes the cones would clog, forming a series of sometimes conglomerated forms, and then the process would start again at the top of the formation.

Mountain Apatity

Descending from the Nyereg hill, we take the S▲ signpost to the right and climb up to the 16.5m-high Watchtower Lookout on Apáti hill. The hill takes its name from the medieval village of Apáti, which lay at its foot. The building, inaugurated in 2017, is modelled on a watchtower typical of the Roman era. Behind Lake Balaton, which almost completely encircles the peninsula below, you can see the lines of Outer Somogy to the south, opposite the Kőröshegy viaduct. Moving westwards, the settlements of the southern coast line the coast, some of which are obscured by the Csúcs and Nyereg mountains. In front of the Keszthely Gulf of the distant lake, Badacsony stretches in the background, followed by the settlements of the northern shore. To the north, Kab Hill rises in the distance above Aszófő, followed by Balatonfüred, the eastern basin of the lake, with the abbey building in the foreground. The panorama ends with the Kőröshegyi viaduct, with the primeval blossom in the foreground. After the lookout, it is worth going up to the viewpoint of Apáti Hill, from where the water surface of the Outer Lake reedbed is even closer.

The primeval bloom

The Ancestral Flowering Plant was planted between 1924 and 1927 by Dr Gyula Bittera, a herbalist. In addition to lavender oil, the broad-minded and highly knowledgeable researcher was also involved in the preparation of plant extracts for perfumed and medicinal purposes. In the 1930s, he made a paprika extract with a high capsaicin content from the grinding waste from paprika mills, which is still used today to treat rheumatic complaints.

In the beginning, the planting of lavender imported from France was started on the sheepfold between Csúcs Hill and Apáti Hill, which was leased from the abbey, and then, with the boom in lavender oil, lavender cultivation in Tihany increased to more than 100 hectares in the following years. One of the biggest difficulties was the lack of suitable agrotechnology in Hungary, where he was the first to try growing and processing lavender on such a large area. After the first planting, the plantation came into production 5 years later. At that time, the essential oil was distilled almost immediately at the edge of the lavender, because, according to the herbalist, rapid processing is essential to obtain a good composition. The quality of lavender oil is mainly determined by its ester content, called linalyl acetate. This, together with the terpenic alcohol linalol, gives the essential oil its analgesic, sedative, relaxant and anti-inflammatory properties. Even the first distillation in Tihany was very successful. The lavender oil extracted had an ester content of over 60%, surpassing the world-famous lavender oils of France.

Buoyed by his considerable success, Bittera founded his own essential oil factory in Budapest in 1936. By this time he was already in charge of several herb growing and processing plants. The essential oil industry really took off at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s. At that time, in addition to lavender, muscadine sage, Roman chamomile, hyssop and insect pollen were cultivated in Tihany. The latter is a wild perennial in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Its economic value is that the finely ground powder of the flowers paralyses the respiratory system of insects due to its pyrethrin content. At the time, lavender was so valuable that it was even listed on the stock exchange, but its flourishing factory was nationalised in 1949. Over time, most of the lavender plantations were ploughed up and the remaining land was left to go wild, and it was only in 1986 that the plant was replanted. Today it grows on about 30 hectares in Tihany.

The windswept roof of the volcanic Kiserdő

Descending from the mountain through the mosaic of pasture-wood pasture mosaics that have been created on the site of a wild primeval forest, we join the Z▲ signpost and, taking it to the left, we follow it through the vineyards around the depression called Farkasverem. Pass through long rows of vines, then climb to the top of the Small Woods at the north-western bay of the Inner Lake.

As you continue uphill, you come to the top of a rock wall, the remains of tephra deposited on the inner wall of a crater that formed where the Inner Lake once stood, and then transported to become rock. Following our path, we come to the Windmarsh rocks, which reveal primary pyroclastic sediment that has been ejected from the volcanic vent and then reflown or refluxed, so their tilted position is not the result of a later tilting. They were formed by deeper, violent explosions, as shown by deeper rocks (xenoliths) that were ripped up from the volcanic basement and incorporated into the stratigraphic sequence. Pyroclastic torrents formed, and the eruption centre (maar) around today's Outer Lake was replaced by a deepening depression, into which water flowed through the horn wall, and the resulting mud erupted, tearing up the deeper rocks. As volcanic activity subsided, especially during the Ice Age, sand transported by strong air currents carved the Windmarsh rocks into this shape, biting deep into the softer rock layers, while the relatively soft basaltic tuff was, and still is, shaped by water freezing in the cracks.

The Outer Lake

It is at the site of the Outer Lake that the Tihany volcanism may have begun about 8 million years ago, and the scattered material from this volcanism is the source of the stratigraphy of the Friulian dwellings, for example. During the fourth eruptive phase of the temporarily extinct volcanic field, the Outer Lake horn reopened, but this time a maar crater was formed, which is still the largest undrained depression on the peninsula. This created the present-day Outer Lake. Since the peninsula was once mainly used for grazing livestock, in the 19th century the abbey tried to meet a large part of its livestock feed needs with meadowland obtained by draining the Outer Lake. By 1809 the lake had been canalised, which is still visible today. The water was drained into a Roman-era ditch dug into the side of the former crater between the Apáti and Diós lakes, draining most of the lake, so that until the early 20th century a slightly saline marshland was growing in its bed and was used as meadowland. The ditch sluice was closed in 1974 for nature conservation purposes, after which rainfall filled the bed again, creating a large open water area. Later, aquatic plants were established over an increasing area of the pond and reed cutting was carried out until the mid-1990s.

Back to the boat station

Descending from the Outer Lake, we follow the Tihany access road for a short stretch. Cross over to the other side at the cemetery, then weave your way along a gravel road marked Z. Crossing Árpád Street, we climb back up a flight of steps to the top of the Calvary.

The Charles IV Calvary was built in the 1920s with public donations. Its inscribed and bronze relief stelae are in the name of the counties and free royal towns of Great Hungary. On the hilltop stands the stone cross of Christ, with the triple pile of geyser blocks in the background and the bronze plaque of King Charles IV of Hungary. After its demolition in 1960, this unique sacral monument was restored in autumn 2012.

From the Calvary Passing by the country houses of Tihany, we take the Z▲ sign winding along the sloping streets back to the lakeside, where the boat station is just a few hundred metres on the left.