Leave Bistriţa eastwards on the DN17 and within minutes you are in Livezile, a long village strung out along the valley of the Bistriţa river where the Transylvanian hills start to bunch up towards the Eastern Carpathians. Poderei is the name of a hillside here where the Romans kept watch over the northern edge of their province of Dacia, and the site is one of the many small components of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire listed in Romania in 2024. There is nothing to visit in the sense of ruins; what you get is the hill, the view up the valley and the knowledge that legionaries stared at the same ridges.
The road you are on has a famous literary destination. Bram Stoker sent Jonathan Harker through Bistritz in Dracula, staying at the Golden Krone before setting off by coach for the Borgo Pass. The pass is real, known in Romanian as Tihuţa, and the DN17 climbs over it towards Vatra Dornei and Bukovina. It is one of the finest rides in northern Romania: a steady climb through villages, then forest, then broad bends with views over wave after wave of hills. A hotel built near the summit trades shamelessly on the Dracula connection, and it is a fun place for a coffee.
Bistriţa itself was a Saxon town, Bistritz, founded by German colonists in the Middle Ages, and its Evangelical church with its tall tower dominates the old square. The tower was badly damaged by fire in 2008 and has been restored. The arcaded merchants' houses known as the Sugălete line one side of the centre.
This is fruit country, as the village name suggests: livezi means orchards in Romanian, and in late summer the roadside stalls are piled with plums and apples, while the smell of plum brandy being distilled hangs over some farmyards in autumn. Along the DN17 you share the road with trucks and local traffic, and villages bring speed limits, dogs and horse carts, so keep your eyes up.
Bistriţa, eight kilometres away, is a sizeable town with fuel, workshops, supermarkets and hotels, and it is the natural place to stock up before the climb. In winter the pass can be snowy and icy; from late spring to autumn it is a delight, and a sunset ride back down towards the town, with the hills glowing, is about as good as an evening gets in Transylvania.