The Saint Bartholomew Church (Szent Bertalan templom), known to locals simply as the "Big Church" (Nagytemplom), stands on the Main Square (Fő tér) with its two towers over the centre of town of Gyöngyös. A church has occupied the spot since the thirteenth century, but the building was enlarged around 1350 and again in the fifteenth century into one of the largest hall churches in medieval Hungary. It was recast in Baroque style between 1746 and 1756, with the towers added later and the upper stages finished in the nineteenth century, so what you see now reads as Baroque despite its Gothic bones. The fire of 1917 did serious damage, and the simpler tower caps date from the repairs that followed. A pair of Gothic twin windows survive at the apse, along with a bronze baptismal font from the fifteenth century. The attached treasury holds what is reckoned the second-richest collection of church goldsmith work and vestments in the country, which is the main reason to step inside rather than just admire the façade.

Beyond the church, the rebuilt Old Town rewards a slow walk, its squares and merchant houses giving the centre a calm, of-a-piece feel that owes a good deal to the post-fire reconstruction. Gyöngyös is the working capital of the Mátra wine region, the vineyards climbing the lower slopes just outside town, and the local output leans to whites — Olaszrizling, Leányka, Muscat Ottonel and the like — which you can taste in the cellars at nearby Farkasmály. The Mátra Museum occupies the neo-classical Orczy mansion and its grounds and holds one of the larger natural-history collections in Hungary, a good wet-weather option. The Franciscan church and friary and the Baroque Grassalkovich house round out the in-town sights, and the square's ornamental well carries the arms of the town's twin cities. None of it takes long, which is part of the appeal: a morning is enough before heading for the hills.

The Mátravasút, the Mátra's narrow-gauge forest railway, has run out of Gyöngyös since 1926 and is one of the better-known lines of its kind in the country. Built to the 760-millimetre gauge and operated today by the state forestry company, it splits into two routes north of town. One climbs gently to Mátrafüred through fields and vineyards, with the bulk of Kékes ahead of you for much of the way; the other turns northwest and follows a stream deep into the forest toward Lajosháza and Szalajkaház, a run of roughly thirteen kilometres. Trains are usually diesel-hauled, with occasional steam outings, and the line keeps a historic engine nicknamed Gyöngyi. From the Mátrafüred terminus it's a short walk to the Kozmáry lookout, the wooded valley of the Bene stream and the Bába Stone. The little railway is squarely a family outing, and it leaves from its own terminus near the main MÁV station on Dobó utca.

Higher up, on Road 24 between Mátrafüred and Mátraháza, lies Sástó — a small reedy lake that sits higher than any other lake in Hungary. A nature trail loops the water on timber bridges, level enough to be followed in a wheelchair, and the setting is quiet and wooded. The draw here is the Sástó lookout tower, a structure with an unusual past: it began life as an oil derrick on the plain at Algyő and was later re-erected and reshaped into a viewing tower of about fifty-three metres. Climbing it, you can see the tell of its origins — a tube-like gap runs all the way up the centre of the staircase, where the drilling shaft once was — and it takes more than two hundred and fifty steps to reach the top. From there the Mátra spreads out below, and in clear air the view reaches as far as the Buda Hills above the capital and the line of the Tisza out on the Great Plain. The tower is built to keep children climbing, with things to spot on the way up. Road 24 carries on above Sástó to Kékes (Kékestető), at 1,014 metres the highest peak in Hungary, where the television tower doubles as a lookout with a terrace and a snack bar.

The MÁV station is on the edge of town, about 1.2 kilometres of flat, signposted streets from the Main Square and the church — a quarter-hour walk, or a short, easy ride. The narrow-gauge Mátravasút has its own nearby terminus on Dobó utca, so the two railways connect with little fuss. Getting up into the hills is where the terrain bites: the road from town to Sástó climbs around ten kilometres and gains roughly 300 metres, a genuine ascent rather than a gentle slope, and it continues to rise sharply toward Kékes. Cyclists comfortable with the climb can ride it; otherwise the practical move is to shortcut the first stretch on the narrow-gauge to Mátrafüred and pick up a Volánbusz onward along Road 24 to Sástó and Kékestető. If you're carrying a bike, check ahead, since room on the narrow-gauge depends on the day's carriages. Buses run on up to the summit, and the return to Budapest is the reverse of the morning's journey.