Three sculptures, one straight line, and a city that grew up around them: that is the Brâncuși ensemble in Târgu Jiu. The Table of Silence stands near the Jiu river, the Gate of the Kiss marks the entrance to the park, and the Endless Column rises at the far end of the Avenue of Heroes, a stack of rhomboid modules in coppery cast iron climbing nearly thirty metres into the sky. Walk the whole axis from river to column and you will cover about a kilometre and a half.
Constantin Brâncuși was born in Hobița, a village not far from here, walked to Paris as a young man and became one of the founders of modern sculpture. In the late 1930s the women's league of Gorj commissioned him to make a memorial to the local soldiers who died defending the Jiu crossing against the German advance in 1916. He gave them something no one expected: no generals, no bayonets, just pure form, a sequence meant to be walked through as a meditation on sacrifice and memory. The communists later neglected it, and at one point there was talk of pulling the column down, but it survived and is now a World Heritage site.
Târgu Jiu is a pleasant mid-sized city with all the services you need, and a sensible place to start or end a ride. North of town the land climbs fast into the Parâng and Vâlcan mountains. The Transalpina, one of the highest roads in Romania, starts its climb at Novaci, east of here, and the road over Polovragi and the gorges of the Olteț and Galbenul are within easy reach. Heading west, the route towards Baia de Aramă and the Cerna valley, where these rides end up, runs through limestone country with gorges and caves.
The riding in the immediate area is flatter than you might expect, with farmland and orchards in the Jiu valley, but give it half an hour and you will be climbing through beech forest. Summer days can be very hot in the valley, so an early start pays.
There is plenty of fuel in town, and the restaurants around the centre serve Oltenian staples: grilled mici, sour soups, and polenta with cheese. Park the bike, walk the axis slowly, and sit for a moment at the Table of Silence; the stone stools around it are cold even on a warm day.