Muncel is a village in the hills north-east of Dej, and the thing to know about Dej is salt. The town, with about thirty-eight thousand people, stands at the confluence of the Somesul Mare and the Somesul Mic, the two rivers that together form the Somes, and for centuries it was one of the centres of salt production in Transylvania, with a mine at Ocna Dej whose old galleries and ponds are now used for swimming and health cures. Salt was the white gold of the Middle Ages, and the Hungarian kings, and the Romans before them, took good care to control it.
Dambul lui Golas, the Hill of Golas, is a rounded hill above the village, and the ride that includes it also goes to Brancovenesti, a village on the Mures with a sixteenth-century castle, home to a Hungarian noble family. What I can say is that from such a vantage you look across a land of sheep, orchards, beech woods and small valleys, with the blue outline of the Meses range in the distance.
The riding is easy and unhurried. Dej is on the main road between Cluj and Baia Mare, heavy with lorries, but turn off onto the side roads and the traffic disappears. The valleys are wide and the climbs are gentle, with sweeping views, though the surface may be broken, with sudden drops of tarmac on the bends. Fog fills the lowlands on autumn and winter mornings, and in spring, melting snow brings mud to the farm tracks. Summer is hot and dry, with thunderstorms in the late afternoon.
Dej has all the services you need, including several fuel stations, a market, and an old centre with a Gothic Reformed church, whose tall tower dominates the skyline. The restaurants serve grilled meat, polenta with cheese and sour cream, and cabbage dishes, with local wine from the hills. Sixteen kilometres separate the town from the village, and the villages in between have little in the way of shops, so fill up and buy your food beforehand. Villagers still make hay with scythes and rakes, and wooden gates and well sweeps mark the farmsteads.