Fildu de Sus is strung along a valley in the hills between Ciucea and the Crasna country, where the Apuseni mountains soften into rounded, grassy ridges, and Greban, the hill in the label, is one of those ridges. The valley is small and green, with a stream, a line of houses, and orchards climbing the slopes, and it feels a long way from the main road that carries the traffic between Cluj and Oradea. Poieni and Ciucea are the nearest villages, and Negreni lies a short distance to the east.
It is a landscape of ordinary rural life, and that is its charm. People here make hay with scythes and pitchforks, store it in conical stacks, and carry it home on horse-drawn carts, and in the evening the cows walk home on their own along the road. Houses are low and whitewashed, and some of the older ones still have shingled roofs and carved wooden porches. You may see women in headscarves tending vegetable gardens, and men chatting at the gate. The church, often a small one, stands on a rise above the village and is worth a quiet minute.
The roads are narrow and winding, and the surface is a lottery, but the bends are mostly gentle and the gradients short. Expect some patches of gravel, cattle, and the occasional pothole you could lose a wheel in, especially after winter. The pleasure is in the slow pace, the smell of hay, and the long views from the ridges, which on a clear day reach the high peaks of the Vladeasa massif. Fog can fill the valleys in the morning, and thunderstorms roll in quickly in summer afternoons.
Nothing much in the way of services is available in the village, aside from perhaps a small shop. Ciucea, five kilometres away, has a petrol station and shops, and Huedin, fifteen kilometres to the east, has supermarkets, restaurants and a weekly market. A thermos of coffee and some bread and cheese in the saddlebag are worth carrying. Early autumn, when the mist burns off and the leaves turn, is the best time to come.