Salva is a railway village. Trains for the Maramureș line split off here from the route along the Someșul Mare, and the place has a slightly busy, crossroads feel for a commune of a little over four thousand people. The site called Roata lui Todoran, Todoran's wheel, sits right by the village in the Năsăud country of Bistrița-Năsăud, a region that marked the northern edge of Roman Dacia and later formed part of a Habsburg border regiment. Few places in Transylvania have been a frontier for quite so long.
Năsăud, four kilometres away, is the town to know. It was the seat of that frontier regiment and still has an air of civic pride out of proportion to its ten thousand inhabitants, with a well-known high school and a regional museum. The poet George Coșbuc was born in a village just up the valley, and the novelist Liviu Rebreanu also came from this area, so locals take their literature seriously. Fuel, groceries and a hot meal are easy there.
The riding is gentle and rewarding. North of Salva the road follows the Sălăuța valley up toward the Maramureș border and the Șetref pass, rising through hay meadows and spruce woods, and it is one of the better ways into Maramureș if you want to avoid main roads. East, the Someșul Mare valley leads toward Rodna and the mountains of the same name, the highest in the Eastern Carpathians. Surfaces vary from fresh tarmac to tired patchwork, and the railway crossings deserve a careful approach.
In high summer, hay is made by hand on the steep slopes and stacked around tall poles, and the smell carries onto the road. Storks are everywhere. Come in September if you can, when the hills are still green, the light is softer and the tourist traffic heading to Maramureș has thinned. Whatever the season, Salva is a hinge of a place: the Roman edge, the Habsburg edge, and the point where the land starts to rise toward the north.