The long, gently sloping Piața Centrală is the heart of medieval Bistrița and the shape of every Saxon-Transylvanian town: a wide central market space framed on three sides by merchants' houses and dominated by the Lutheran church. The square has been gently pedestrianised and now hosts the weekly market, summer events and a handful of cafes spilling out onto the cobbles.
Walking the full length of the square from end to end gives a good sense of how the town was laid out by its 12th-century German colonists — built for trade, defended at the edges, ordered around the church and the council house in the middle.