SéTapolca - Walking festival in the Tapolca Basin

On 17-18 June, the SéTapolca Walking Festival attracted more than 200 visitors to Tapolca and the surrounding villages and hiking trails. The TÁJTÉKA team worked together with local walking tour and hiking guides to put together a programme that showcased the rich built and landscape environment of the Tapolca Basin. Over two days, the 11 walks were attended by diverse age groups, including both locals and visitors.

The festival was a unique combination of the methodology of the KÉK Urban Walks, the local history and literary walks, as well as the geology and landscape walks, so the visitors and residents of Tapolca could choose from a very rich and colourful programme. The event included a classic one-and-a-half-hour architectural walk in the historic town centre, a full day tour through the hills and valleys of the Tapolca basin, and for the more adventurous, a volcano tour on bikes as well as a tour of the Haraszt caves.

The increasing success of urban walks shows that as adults we are still keen to learn about our own environment, to discover the streets we walk every day, or the hills, forests and fields that are an integral part of our everyday landscape. The walks are also an opportunity to find new connections to our hometown and to look at memories of our youth through the changes in the built environment and landscape. Futhermore, by sharing our own personal stories with other walkers, new layers of the city's history are revealed.

We hope that the festival will find a home in the Tapolca Basin and that next year we can bring the whole town out again, raising awareness of our built and natural environment. Thank you to all participants and tour guides for participating in the festival!

The event was part of the Veszprém-Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture programme.