Cetatea Fetei (Maiden's Castle) in Florești

Cetatea Fetei (Leányvár in Hungarian) stands on a wooded hill in Florești commune, south of Florești village, above the road to Tăuți, a few kilometres west of Cluj-Napoca. From the height one could watch the Someșul Mic valley between Cluj and Gilău. The ruins cannot be seen from the road; they are reached on foot in about a quarter of an hour along a forest path marked with a red stripe. The first fortification was probably wooden and did not survive the great Tatar invasion of 1241-1242. Rebuilt in stone, the castle belonged to the Bishopric of Transylvania; a castellan of the bishop "de Fenes" is mentioned in documents in 1312, 1357 and 1373. The castle was most likely destroyed during the Bobâlna peasant revolt of 1437, and after the revolt was put down the bishopric built a new castle at Gilău in 1439, which took over its role. Today the forest hides the outline of the oval enclosure, about 60 x 35 m, surrounded by ditches and an earth rampart, and a fragment of stone wall about 6 m wide and 6.75 m high, with an opening that passes through it. Excavations in the early 1990s showed that a double timber palisade 4.4 m thick and a stone wall stood here at the same time, a combination previously unknown in medieval Transylvania. Access is free. The Florești archaeological site, "Labu" ("Cetatea Fetelor") point, is a category A historic monument, LMI code CJ-I-s-A-07051, and the 13th-14th-century castle has the code CJ-I-m-A-07051.01. Did you know that the castle's name comes from a legend? According to local tradition, during a Tatar invasion a village girl was captured and, although tortured, would not reveal where the villagers were hiding; the place was named the Maiden's Castle in her memory.