Upstream from Reghin, where the Mureș leaves the mountains and widens into the Transylvanian hill country, the village of Brâncovenești stands beside a castle with round corner towers and a long, plain facade overlooking the river. Known in Hungarian as Marosvécs, it was rebuilt several times over the centuries, and in the twentieth century it belonged to the Kemény family. Between the two world wars, Baron János Kemény opened its doors to a circle of Hungarian writers from Transylvania, the Helikon group, who met here every summer to read, debate and plan their literary work. Those gatherings made a remote country house one of the liveliest literary addresses in the region for almost two decades.
The castle stands on a site with much older roots. A Roman fort guarded the Mureș valley here, at the north eastern edge of the province of Dacia, and its remains are part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, Dacia, added to the UNESCO list in 2024. The fort controlled the route up the valley into the Carpathians, the same route that the modern road and railway follow today.
For riders, the valley of the upper Mureș is a fine introduction to the Carpathians. North of Brâncovenești, the river enters the Mureș Defile between Deda and Toplița, a narrow, wooded gorge about thirty kilometres long, where the road follows the river through a series of bends, with forested slopes rising steeply on both sides. It is a beautiful ride, though the road can be busy with trucks, and the surface varies. Beyond Toplița, the road climbs towards the high basins of Harghita and the eastern Carpathians.
Reghin, about eight kilometres away, is the main town of the area, with fuel, shops and restaurants, and it has a long tradition of making musical instruments, especially violins, from the resonant spruce wood of the surrounding mountains. The area is ethnically mixed, with Romanian and Hungarian communities living side by side, each with its own churches and traditions. The food reflects that mix, with goulash and chimney cake alongside sarmale and polenta. The weather is continental, with warm summers and cold winters, and the river valley can be foggy in the mornings in spring and autumn.