South of Sighișoara the hills fold into long, grassy valleys, and almost every one of them hides a village built around a church that was also a castle. This marker sits among them, close to Șaeș and Apold, two of the old Saxon settlements whose German names, Schaas and Trappold, still turn up on church plaques and in the memories of the few families who stayed.
The Transylvanian Saxons arrived from the Rhine and Moselle lands from the twelfth century onwards, invited by Hungarian kings to farm and defend the frontier. Through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with Ottoman and Tatar raids sweeping in from the south and east, each village turned its church into a refuge: thick ring walls, towers for each family's stores, a well, and a hall where everyone could hold out while the raiders burned the fields. Seven of these villages are on the World Heritage list, but dozens more look much the same, and Apold's church, with its walls still standing above the houses, is a good example of the type.
The riding is calm and pastoral. Lanes wander from village to village over low ridges, past sheepfolds, haystacks shaped like loaves and lines of walnut trees. Tarmac comes and goes; some of the links between villages are gravel or dirt, and after rain they turn into slippery clay that will humble a heavy bike. In dry weather, though, these are some of the most rewarding back roads in Romania, and on a weekday you might meet more buffalo than cars.
Most Saxons left for Germany after 1990, and the villages are now home mainly to Romanian and Roma families. Many churches are locked, but a phone number on the gate or a neighbour with a key often solves that. Some villages have small guesthouses that serve home cooking: soup, smoked meats, cheese, and something with plums or apricots afterwards.
Sighișoara, ten kilometres north, is your base for fuel, cash and supplies, and its walled hilltop citadel, birthplace by tradition of Vlad the Impaler, is worth an evening stroll once the tour coaches have gone. Out here among the villages there is nothing to buy fuel from, so set off with a full tank.