Sub Magura Stanii means below the sheepfold hill, and the stop sits on the lower slopes, where the hill gives way to farmland and the first houses. This is the part of the landscape where people live and work: small plots of potatoes and maize, plum orchards, vegetable patches behind the houses, and a few cows grazing on the verge. The label offers no monument, so the best description is a day in the country, in a place where life goes on at the speed it always has.
The plums are the thing. Salaj is one of the main plum-growing regions of Romania, and the orchards here are old, with gnarled trees that bloom white in April and drop their fruit in September. Much of the crop is turned into tuica, a clear brandy distilled once or twice in small copper stills, often in the yard of a farmhouse. The smell of fermenting plums in autumn hangs over the villages. Locals use it as a greeting, a medicine and a mark of hospitality, and it is rude to refuse the first offer. A sip is enough.
Houses here are long and low, with whitewashed walls and tiled roofs, and many have a small porch with carved wooden posts. Hungarian and Romanian families live side by side, and in some villages you can hear both languages. Church towers mark the villages, and you will see both Orthodox and Reformed churches. The Reformed churches, plain and white, often have a painted wooden ceiling inside.
Riding on the lanes below the hill is easy and relaxed. Roads are narrow, and may be patched, with a speed limit of fifty in villages. Take care at dusk, when animals are on the road, and slow down for any horse cart. Zalau, about a quarter of an hour away, offers full services, and it is wise to fill up there.
Autumn is the time to come, when the orchards are heavy with fruit, the air is warm in the daytime and cool at night, and the smoke from distilleries drifts across the hills.