Buciumi has a Roman fort, and a proper one. On a low hill above the village, the outline of a rectangular auxiliary fort has been excavated, with walls, gates and the foundations of the buildings inside, laid out to the standard Roman pattern with the headquarters in the middle and barracks to either side. It was one of the forts guarding the road and the passes of the Meseş mountains, a few kilometres from the larger fortress and town at Porolissum, and it held a unit of auxiliary troops, soldiers recruited from the provinces rather than citizen legionaries.
Those auxiliaries came from far afield. Inscriptions from the Porolissum frontier record units raised in places as distant as Syria and Britain, which is a vivid reminder that the Roman army moved people around the empire, and that a Syrian archer might have spent his service in the beech hills of Transylvania. The soldiers' families grew up in settlements outside the walls, and when their service ended, they were given citizenship. Grădiște, the name on our list, simply means the site of a fortification in Romanian, a sign that locals have known there was something here for centuries.
For the ride, Buciumi lies in a quiet corner of Sălaj county, in a landscape of low forested ridges, orchards and small valleys, with the Agrij river nearby. The roads are narrow and not always smooth, with patched asphalt, blind bends and the occasional herd of cows, and the pace has to be slow, but the scenery makes up for it. Mornings in late spring are lovely, with mist in the valleys and the smell of cut hay, and September is also good. Rain can turn dirt tracks to mud.
Buciumi itself is a village of under three thousand people with a shop or two, and for fuel the sensible choice is Crasna, eighteen kilometres away, or Zalău a little farther. Agrij and the neighbouring villages sell homemade cheese, plum jam and honey, which are good to try if you find a stall. The Romanian people you meet here tend to be curious, hospitable and happy to chat, even if the conversation consists mainly of gestures.