Livezile - Poderei and Church of the Holy Archangels

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Livezile - Poderei

   Leave Bistriţa eastwards on the DN17 and within minutes you are in Livezile, a long village strung out along the valley of the Bistriţa river where the Transylvanian hills start to bunch up towards the Eastern Carpathians. Poderei is the name of a hillside here where the Romans kept watch over the northern edge of their province of Dacia, and the site is one of the many small components of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire listed in Romania in 2024. There is nothing to visit in the sense of ruins; what you get is the hill, the view up the valley and the knowledge that legionaries stared at the same ridges.

   Read the complete Livezile - Poderei write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Livezile - Poderei is where the day begins. Next is Dumbrăveni - Vârful Runcului.

2. 2. Dumbrăveni - Vârful Runcului

   The countryside around Vârful Runcului is the landscape that two of Romania's best-loved writers came from, and it shows in their work. Liviu Rebreanu, born in the Năsăud area in 1885, set his novel Ion, about a peasant's hunger for land, in villages very like these, and the poet George Coșbuc grew up not far away in the valleys north of Năsăud. The hill itself, a rounded summit above the Someș valley, carries traces of the Roman watch system that once guarded the northern frontier of Dacia, part of the World Heritage listing since 2024, but its real charm is the view of the farmland Rebreanu wrote about.

   Read the complete Dumbrăveni - Vârful Runcului write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Dumbrăveni - Vârful Runcului comes up about 66 km into the recorded legs. Next is Church of the Holy Archangels.

3. 3. Church of the Holy Archangels

   Just outside Baia Mare, where the city gives way to the hills, the countryside of northern Romania begins to show the tradition that made this region famous: churches built entirely of wood, with steep shingled roofs and tall, needle-like spires. Many of them are dedicated to the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, and this dedication is common across the region, from small village churches to some of the eight Wooden Churches of Maramureș listed by UNESCO in 1999. Surdești and Plopiș, both within a short ride of Baia Mare, are among the finest of those, with spires that seem far too tall for the buildings beneath them.

   Read the complete Church of the Holy Archangels write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 161 km into the recorded legs you reach Church of the Holy Archangels. Next is back through Dumbrăveni - Vârful Runcului.

4. 4. back through Dumbrăveni - Vârful Runcului

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Dumbrăveni - Vârful Runcului write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Dumbrăveni - Vârful Runcului, late in the day. Next is Livezile - Poderei.

5. 5. Livezile - Poderei

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Livezile - Poderei write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Livezile - Poderei. That is the ride.