Baciu Gorge Nature Reserve

The Baciu Gorge (Cheile Baciului) is a small nature reserve on the western edge of Cluj-Napoca, in the northern part of the Hoia Forest, towards the village of Baciu. The list of protected areas places it within the municipality of Cluj-Napoca, while the List of Historic Monuments and OpenStreetMap place it at the village of Baciu, in Baciu commune. The Valea Lungă and Valea Popești streams have cut a short gorge here into Eocene limestone. The place has been inhabited since the Neolithic: at the "Cheile Baciului" point, a Neolithic settlement and cemetery are on the List of Historic Monuments, and next to it, at "Gura Baciului", a Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement was systematically excavated by archaeologist Nicolae Vlassa in 1960, 1962 and between 1968 and 1971. The reserve protects the limestone cliffs, fossil-bearing deposits and rock vegetation, together with forest and meadows. It is a place for a short walk close to the city; the gorge is reached from Baciu along Cheile Baciului street. The former chalet and restaurant at the entrance to the gorge is abandoned and in ruins. The Baciu Gorge is a protected area of national interest, a mixed-type nature reserve (IUCN category IV), listed under code 2.341 in the annex to Law no. 5/2000, with an area of 3 ha. The archaeological site in the gorge has LMI code CJ-I-s-A-06952, and the Gura Baciului site CJ-I-s-A-06949. Did you know that at Gura Baciului, next to the gorge, archaeologists excavated an Early Neolithic settlement of the Starčevo-Criș culture (6th millennium BC)? They found there a cremation grave covered by a large carved stone head, and cremation was an unusual custom in the Early Neolithic of Romania.