Cetățea is a diminutive, a little citadel, and the word appears again and again on the map of Transylvania, wherever a hill carries the trace of an old enclosure. I can say what kind of site the name suggests: a hilltop settlement ringed with ditches and banks, of the sort the Dacians built in great numbers in the centuries before the Roman conquest.
The Dacians were the people of what is now Romania, closely related to the Thracians, and by the first century BC they had formed a powerful kingdom under Burebista and later Decebalus. Their most famous strongholds, the fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains in the south, with their stone walls, terraces and sanctuaries, are a UNESCO site, but the whole of Transylvania is dotted with smaller hillforts that served as refuges, farms and workshops. Gold and iron were the wealth of the country, and the Romans, who conquered it after two hard wars early in the second century AD, carried off a vast treasure.
In the Apuseni, these hills are covered in a patchwork of meadow and forest, and a rider can enjoy the landscape without worrying about what is under the turf. The roads off the E60 are narrow, winding and generally quiet, and a few are gravel. A good option is to follow a stream up from Ciucea, past farms and sawmills, to a village where the road ends and the forest begins. Autumn is the best season, with a haze in the valleys and a smell of woodsmoke, and late spring brings a green so bright it seems almost artificial.
The towns of Ciucea and Huedin have fuel and supplies, and Ciucea has a small castle on a hill with a view over the valley.
If a local points to a hill and says cetate, take it as an invitation. There is often a path, a view, and a story nobody has written down.