Village of Dârjiu and Inlăceni - Cetate

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Village of Dârjiu

   Dârjiu is a Székely village of around eleven hundred people in Harghita county, and at its heart stands one of the fortified churches that UNESCO lists among the Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania. Most of those villages are Saxon and Lutheran; Dârjiu is Hungarian-speaking and Unitarian, which makes it something of an odd one out and all the more interesting. A ring of thick walls and towers encloses the church, built so that villagers could shelter from raiders, and the tradition of storing smoked bacon and grain in the fortress towers lasted here long into modern times.

   Read the complete Village of Dârjiu write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Village of Dârjiu is where the day begins. Next is Village of Viscri.

2. 2. Village of Viscri

   Viscri is the village people picture when they think of Transylvania's Saxon heritage, and it more or less lives up to it. A single long street of pastel houses, blue, ochre and white, stands gable end to the road, with geese in the ditch, horse carts at dusk and, at the top of the slope, a fortified church wrapped in thick white walls. It is part of the Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania listed by UNESCO, and it is one of the best preserved.

   Read the complete Village of Viscri write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Village of Viscri comes up about 49 km into the recorded legs. Next is Village of Saschiz-Keisd.

3. 3. Village of Saschiz-Keisd

   The clock tower of the fortified church in Saschiz looks oddly familiar if you have just come from Sighișoara, and that is no accident: it was built in the image of the famous clock tower of the nearby town, a statement of local pride by the Saxon villagers who built it in the late fifteenth century. The church belongs to the World Heritage inscription for villages with fortified churches in Transylvania, a group of German-speaking Saxon communities that fortified their churches against Ottoman and Tatar raids. Above the village, on a wooded hill, are the ruins of a peasant citadel, where the inhabitants took refuge during attacks.

   Read the complete Village of Saschiz-Keisd write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach Village of Saschiz-Keisd. Next is Inlăceni - Cetate.

4. 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.

   Read the complete Inlăceni - Cetate write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Inlăceni - Cetate, about halfway. Next is back through Village of Saschiz-Keisd.

5. 5. back through Village of Saschiz-Keisd

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Village of Saschiz-Keisd write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Village of Saschiz-Keisd sits at 117 km, about halfway. Next is back through Village of Viscri.

6. 6. back through Village of Viscri

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Village of Viscri write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Village of Viscri comes up about 176 km into the recorded legs. Next is Village of Dârjiu.

7. 7. Village of Dârjiu

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Village of Dârjiu write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Village of Dârjiu closes the day.