The Coopers' Tower is the best surviving piece of Bistrița's once-extensive medieval fortifications, built into the city wall and guarded by the coopers' (barrel-makers') guild. Bistrița's walls originally had eighteen such guild towers, each defended in wartime by the members of a different craft guild — a system the Saxon towns of Transylvania shared with each other.
The tower today houses a small museum on medieval fortification and the guild system. Climb to the top for a sense of how the defenders watched the southern approach to the town.