Bistrița is the town where Jonathan Harker spends his last comfortable night before heading into the mountains in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and the village of Orheiu Bistriței lies just eight kilometres to the south-east, in the hills above the valley of the Bistrița river. In Roman times, this was the site of an auxiliary fort on the north-eastern frontier of Dacia, and the remains lie beneath the village itself, which the locals know as the vatra satului, the village hearth. Excavations have revealed the outline of the fort, and finds are displayed in the county museum in Bistrița.
Bistrița was founded by Saxon settlers in the Middle Ages and became a prosperous trading town, known in German as Bistritz or Nösen. Its tall Evangelical church dominates the central square, and the arcaded merchants' houses of the Sugălete add to the old-town atmosphere. The town has made the most of its literary fame: there is a hotel named after the Golden Krone, where Harker stayed in the novel, though it is a modern building.
From Bistrița, the DN17 heads east toward the Tihuța pass, the Borgo pass of Stoker's novel, and over the mountains to Vatra Dornei in Bukovina. It is a wonderful road, climbing through forests and meadows with long curves and good views, and in summer it is a popular route for riders heading to the painted monasteries of Bukovina. The surface is generally good, but trucks are frequent, and the weather on the pass can change quickly, with fog and rain common even in summer.
The hills around Orheiu Bistriței are gentle and rural, with orchards, meadows and woods, and the smaller roads through the villages are narrow and quiet, perfect for a slower ride. To the south, the road toward Reghin passes through the valley of the Șieu, with more Saxon villages and fortified churches along the way.
Bistrița, a city of over eighty thousand, has fuel, shops, restaurants and accommodation of every kind. In town, try a plate of local sausages or a bowl of ciorbă, and in autumn look out for apples and plums sold at the roadside. And if you head over the pass at dusk, with the mist rising from the forests and the last light fading behind you, you might understand why Stoker chose this landscape for his tale.