Easy hikes and walks in Bistrița-Năsăud

Ovidenia is the old name of the holiday in the Orthodox calendar on November 21, which corresponds to the Entry of the Mother of God into the Church. The main Orthodox church of Bistrița is dedicated to this day. The building was originally the church of the Minorite Monastery of "St. Andrei", also called the Crown Church, which dates back to the 13th century. It is a hall church with cross vaults and pointed arches, representative of the early Transylvanian Gothic of Cistercian origin. The church was bought by the United Romanian Parish (Greek Catholic) in 1895. In 1948, with the proscription of the United Romanian Church by the communist regime, the entire complex (church and monastery) was handed over to the Romanian Orthodox Church.

The Romanian Orthodox Church in the Bistriţa area is managed by the archdiocese located in this building complex. The archpriest since September 2001 has been Rev. Alexandru Vidican from Căianu Mic. The building dates back to the former Minorite monastery from the 13th century, to which the church next door also belonged.

In the small park of Piața Uniri stands a bust of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, a work by the sculptor Mircea Mocanu. Alexandru Ioan Cuza (or Alexandru Ioan I) was the first ruler of the United Principalities and the nation state of Romania. His election as ruler of Moldova on January 5, 1859, and of Romania on January 24, 1859, brought about the union of the two principalities. His committed political and diplomatic efforts enabled the formation of the modern Romanian unified state in January 1862, with Bucharest as its capital.

Under the protection of the Hungarian Queen Elisabeth, the inhabitants of Bistriţa became the most important merchants in the region in the 15th century. They handled trade between Transylvania and Moldavia. The city was declared a "royal free city", a status that gave it economic, legal and political autonomy. The proud town houses, many of which are still well preserved, bear witness to this heyday.

Bistrița is located in a wide depression, surrounded by rolling hills that dominate the landscape. The settlement was founded when the region in the north-eastern corner of Transylvania, which at the beginning of the Middle Ages lay between the royal possessions, was settled by settlers from Hungary, but above all by groups of Flemish, Walloons, Saxons and Bavarians, who were later grouped together under the name "Transylvanian Saxons". Through the Golden Bull of the Saxons of 1224, they were endowed with a number of rights and freedoms that brought them high social status and economic privileges. The first mention of the place dates back to 1241, when in the codes of the Echternach monastery, between the settlements destroyed by the Mongols, "oppidum Nosna" is mentioned, the name given by the settlers to the settlement founded on the banks of the Bistrita river.

The Evangelical Church dominates the city views in the center of Bistriţa. The city's main landmark is a popular photo subject.

The Roman Catholic church, formerly the church of the Piarist monastery, dates back to the 18th century. The gymnasium founded in Bistriţa in 1717 was the first Piarist school in Transylvania. In that year, General Stephan Steinville bought the land previously owned by the Dominicans and brought the Piarists to the city. The church was built by the Piarists from 1781 onwards on the site of a building that was destroyed by fire in 1758 and demolished in 1779. The church was built in the Viennese Baroque style according to plans by the master engineer Paul Schmidt with financial support from the Viennese imperial court, which wanted to strengthen Catholicism in Transylvania. The work was led by the architect Anton Türk and completed in the spring of 1787, as evidenced by the inscription on the façade.

At the northern corner of the roundabout where Strada Gării meets Strada Gheorghe Șincai stands the imposing building of the "Old Post Office" of Bistrita. The prominent corner bay window with its turret is striking. The building is now used as a residential and commercial building.