|
| |
|
BISTRITA |
| |
|
|
| |
BISTRITA (Bistritz), 40km southeast of Beclean, and the forested
Bârgau valley beyond, are the setting for much of Bram Stoker's Dracula
; his Dracula's castle lies in the Bârgau valley and it was in Bistrita
that Jonathan Harker received the first hints that something was amiss.
Stoker never visited Romania, though he read widely about the terrain
and accurately described the hills covered with orchards that surround
the town.
Remains of Neolithic settlements have been found near Bistrita, although
the earliest records of the town coincide with the arrival of Saxon
settlers, who built fine churches in many villages (less fortress-like
than those further south); to them this was the Nösnerland . The bulk of
the Saxon population, however, left the Nösnerland after World War II.
The Town
From the train and bus stations it's about ten minutes' walk to the
centre; heading southeast on Strada Garii you'll pass a typically
hideous Centru Civic, but as you turn northeast on Strada Sincai you
enter a more attractive townscape. The main square, Piata Centrala , is
dominated by a great Saxon Evangelical church (Mon-Fri 3-6pm, Sat
10am-2pm, Sun service 10am). Built in the Gothic style in the fourteenth
century, the church was given Renaissance features in 1559-63, including
a 76.5-metre tower by Petrus Italus, who also introduced the Renaissance
style to Moldavia. On the northwest side of Piata Centrala, the arcaded
Sugalete buildings (occupied by merchants in the fifteenth century) give
a partial impression of how the town must have looked in its medieval
heyday. At Str. Dornei 5 you'll find the Casa Argintarului , a stone-framed
Renaissance silversmith's house now housing an art college (Mon-Fri
8am-8pm), and continuing northeast, on Piata Unirii, is an Orthodox
church, dating from 1280 (with fourteenth-century additions). Beyond it,
in a former barracks at Str. Gen. Balan 81, the County Museum (Tues-Sun
10am-6pm) has a collection of Thracian bronzeware, Celtic artefacts,
products of the Saxon guilds, mills and presses. Like Brasov and Sibiu,
Bistrita used to be heavily fortified, but successive fires during the
nineteenth century have left only vestiges of the fourteenth-century
citadel along Strada Kogalniceanu and Strada Teodoroiu, including the
Coopers' Tower ( Turnul Dogarilor ) - set to become a museum of medieval
weapons and fortifications - in the Municipal Park.
|
| |
|
