Above the town of Zalau, where the Meses mountains form a long, wooded ridge across northern Transylvania, the Roman Empire built one of its most remote defences. The mountains separated the province of Dacia from the free tribes to the north, and the ridge was fortified with a line of watchtowers and forts, the western part of what is now called the Frontiers of the Roman Empire in Dacia. The greatest of them was Porolissum, a garrison town and customs post on the Meses Gate, the pass through the ridge, near the village of Moigrad.
Porolissum was a busy place. It had a fort on a hilltop, a town below, an amphitheatre where soldiers watched gladiators fight, and a customs post where merchants paid duties on goods crossing the frontier. Today, the stones of the gate, the walls and the arena can still be seen, lying in meadows with a long view over the hills. It feels astonishingly remote for a place that once held thousands of people. The museum in Zalau houses the best finds, and it is worth a visit if you want to understand the scale of the operation.
For riders, the approach is the highlight. The road from Zalau climbs through orchards and beech woods to the pass, with decent asphalt, gentle gradients and a sequence of easy bends. Heavy traffic is rare outside harvest time, though trucks and farm vehicles do use it. The ridgeline itself is best explored by smaller lanes, many of which are rough, with gravel and potholes. Autumn is outstanding, with the beech woods turning bronze and the fields misty in the mornings.
Zalau, only nine kilometres away, is a town of more than sixty thousand people, with all the fuel, shops and restaurants you could want. Villages on the ridge, such as Mirsid and Creaca, are small, with a basic shop and perhaps a bar. If you stop for lunch, look out for local specialities, such as smoked sausages, polenta with cheese and sour cream, and plum brandy distilled in backyards. Spring and autumn are the best seasons.