Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort and Vallum - Troian

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort

   Slăveni is farm country, and the fort here is the sort of ruin you have to meet halfway. "La Cetate" simply means "at the fortress", the name locals gave to a rise in the fields long before anyone excavated it, and what remains of the Roman auxiliary fort is mostly a matter of banks, ditches and the shape of the ground rather than standing walls. If you expect a Hadrian's Wall photograph you will be disappointed; if you like imagining a few hundred soldiers watching a very flat horizon, you will be fine.

   Read the complete Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort is where the day begins. Next is Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor.

2. 2. Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor

   Out on the flat Romanian plain east of the Olt river, the village of Crâmpoia sits among endless fields of wheat, maize and sunflowers, and its name has a place in Roman history. A Roman earthen fort near the village stood on the Limes Transalutanus, the frontier line that the Romans built east of the Olt in the early third century, running from the Danube northward toward the Carpathians, a long earthen rampart with forts and watchtowers. The local name Reduta Tătarilor, the Tatars' redoubt, reflects a common habit in Romania of attributing old earthworks to the Tatars or other invaders, long after the Romans were forgotten. The site is part of the UNESCO-listed frontier of Dacia.

   Read the complete Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gresia - La Biserică.

3. 3. Gresia - La Biserică

   The Wallachian plain in southern Romania is about as flat as Europe gets: a vast expanse of wheat, maize and sunflower fields stretching to the horizon, broken only by lines of acacia trees, irrigation channels and villages strung along the road. Teleorman county, where Gresia lies, is in the heart of it. Two thousand years ago, this was frontier land. The Romans built a long earthwork rampart with forts and towers running north to south east of the river Olt, known as the Limes Transalutanus, to protect their province of Dacia. Gresia and the sites around it, including Roșiorii de Vede, Crâmpoia and Izbășești, lie along its line. Little survives above ground, and the remains need a trained eye or an archaeologist's map to spot, but the idea of a Roman frontier running through these fields adds depth to a landscape that can seem empty.

   Read the complete Gresia - La Biserică write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Gresia - La Biserică. Next is Vallum - Troian.

4. 4. Vallum - Troian

   The Romanian word vallum is a Latin leftover, and it means a rampart. Across the plain north of the Danube, in Teleorman county, a line of low earthworks stretches over the fields, and local people call it Troianul, Trajan's ditch, though no one is sure whether Trajan had anything to do with it. Folk memory has also attached the name of Novac, a legendary hero, to the same banks, and archaeologists suggest the line may have formed part of a Roman or late Roman defence of the Wallachian Plain, though the dating remains debated. What you will find on the ground is subtle: a long, shallow hump in a wheat field, a line of poplars following an old ditch.

   Read the complete Vallum - Troian write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Vallum - Troian, about halfway. Next is back through Gresia - La Biserică.

5. 5. back through Gresia - La Biserică

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Gresia - La Biserică write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Gresia - La Biserică sits at 133 km, about halfway. Next is back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor.

6. 6. back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Crâmpoia - Reduta Tătarilor comes up about 156 km into the recorded legs. Next is Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort.

7. 7. Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Slăveni - La Cetate - auxiliary fort closes the day.