Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 371 km round trip from Hodoşa - roughly 7 h 58 in the saddle. The stops in between: Brâncovenești - Castel, Eremitu - Dealul Tompa, Inlăceni - Cetate and Băile Homorod - Cekend. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Călugăreni - Cetate
Călugăreni lies in the Niraj valley in Mureș county, in the heart of the region known as Székely Land, and here the signs, the conversation and the church spires announce that you are in a Hungarian-speaking part of Romania. The Székelys are a Hungarian community who, for centuries, guarded the eastern borders of the kingdom, and their villages, with carved wooden gates and whitewashed churches, are among the most distinctive in Transylvania. In Hungarian, the village is called Mikháza.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Călugăreni - Cetate is where the day begins. Next is Brâncovenești - Castel.
2. Brâncovenești - Castel
Upstream from Reghin, where the Mureș leaves the mountains and widens into the Transylvanian hill country, the village of Brâncovenești stands beside a castle with round corner towers and a long, plain facade overlooking the river. Known in Hungarian as Marosvécs, it was rebuilt several times over the centuries, and in the twentieth century it belonged to the Kemény family. Between the two world wars, Baron János Kemény opened its doors to a circle of Hungarian writers from Transylvania, the Helikon group, who met here every summer to read, debate and plan their literary work. Those gatherings made a remote country house one of the liveliest literary addresses in the region for almost two decades.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Brâncovenești - Castel comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Eremitu - Dealul Tompa.
3. Eremitu - Dealul Tompa
You are in Szekler country here, in the hills between the Niraj valley and the foot of the Gurghiu and Harghita mountains, a part of Transylvania where most villages have two names and the Hungarian one, Nyárádremete for Eremitu, is the one people use. Dealul Tompa means the blunt hill, and it matches the landscape: rounded, grassy and farmed, with beech woods on the higher ground and a patchwork of hay meadows below.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 82 km into the recorded legs you reach Eremitu - Dealul Tompa. Next is Inlăceni - Cetate.
4. Inlăceni - Cetate
Székely Land, in the eastern part of Transylvania, is the home of a Hungarian-speaking community whose ancestors were placed here in the Middle Ages to guard the eastern frontier of the Kingdom of Hungary, and the same job had been done a thousand years earlier by the Romans. Near the village of Inlăceni, in the hills of Harghita county, stand the remains of a Roman fort, one of the eastern bastions of Dacia, facing the Carpathians and the passes beyond. The stone walls, gates and corner towers can still be traced in a meadow on a hilltop, and the setting, with forests all around and the mountains on the horizon, is one of the most beautiful of all the sites on the Dacian frontier listed by UNESCO.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Inlăceni - Cetate, about halfway. Next is Băile Homorod - Cekend.
5. Băile Homorod - Cekend
Deep in the forests of Harghita county, in the heart of the Székely Land, the small spa of Băile Homorod sits in a valley among spruce and beech, with wooden villas, mineral springs and the smell of resin in the air. The springs here produce borvíz, naturally carbonated mineral water, which the Székely people drink as their everyday water and believe has healing powers. Cekend is the name attached to a nearby hill site on the eastern line of Roman Dacia's frontier, one of hundreds of components listed together as a World Heritage Site in 2024.