Popeni - Dumbravă and Strimbu Băiuț

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Popeni - Dumbravă

   Think of the frontier of Roman Dacia not as a wall but as a net. In the hills of Sălaj, north of the town of Zalău, the Romans stretched a fine mesh of watchtowers, small forts and earthen barriers across the ridges, all centred on the great fortress of Porolissum, which controlled the most important pass from the province into the lands of the free Dacians. Popeni, a village near Jibou, sits near one of the outer strands of that net: at Dumbravă, a spot on the edge of a wood, the remains of a tower are part of the Dacian frontier on the World Heritage list. You will see a bump in the ground and a lot of grass, and that is all the more reason to use your imagination.

   Read the complete Popeni - Dumbravă write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Popeni - Dumbravă is where the day begins. Next is Guga - Vârful Țâglii.

2. 2. Guga - Vârful Țâglii

   Rugășești, Vad and Poiana Blenchii are the kind of villages most people drive past on the way to somewhere else, and that is precisely the charm of the hills that rise between them. The point marked as Guga, Vârful Țâglii, lies on this rolling country north of the Someș, roughly a dozen kilometres from Dej, in the band of land where Rome drew the northern edge of Dacia. A summit called Țâglii is the sort of place where a watchtower would have looked out across the Someș corridor toward the free tribes beyond, and the archaeological lists record a frontier site here.

   Read the complete Guga - Vârful Țâglii write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Guga - Vârful Țâglii comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Strimbu Băiuț.

3. 3. Strimbu Băiuț

   Maramureș is a part of Romania where wooden building became an art. The county in the far north, tucked against the Ukrainian border and ringed by forested mountains, has hundreds of timber churches, and eight of them were listed by UNESCO in 1999. The one at Strâmbu, in the Băiuț area, belongs to the Nativity of the Virgin and dates from the eighteenth century, built of oak logs with a steep, double-tiered shingle roof and a tall slender spire. It looks like a church that has learned to float, with a roof that sheds the heavy snow and a tower that reaches for the sky.

   Read the complete Strimbu Băiuț write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 147 km into the recorded legs you reach Strimbu Băiuț. Next is back through Guga - Vârful Țâglii.

4. 4. back through Guga - Vârful Țâglii

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Guga - Vârful Țâglii write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Guga - Vârful Țâglii, late in the day. Next is Popeni - Dumbravă.

5. 5. Popeni - Dumbravă

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Popeni - Dumbravă write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back at Popeni - Dumbravă. That is the ride.