The cold weather didn't stop us from heading back to the Mosel Valley to visit Germany's oldest city, Trier. Trier was one of the capitals of the Roman Empire and an Imperial Residence founded by Augustus in 16 B.C.
It's only a quick 1.5 hour drive from our house and we figured an easy overnight adventure. We left Saturday morning for the lovely little hotel, Casa Chiara which is only a stone's throw away from the city's only standing Roman gate, the Port Nigra.
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| Port Nigra |
Originally Port Nigra was 1 of 4
gates in the four mile town wall. The other 3 were destroyed by medieval metal
and stone scavengers but this one survived because it became a church, named in
particular for St. Simeon who lived in the gate for 7 years before his death in
1035. This, literally, was our "gateway" to the city and the
self-tour that we led ourselves on during the beautifully sunny but blustery
cold day.
We walked into Market Square, or Hauptmarkt, as we've seen in almost every European town that we've toured. There is always something spectacular about the Hauptmarkt; the Town Hall, Churches, half-timbered houses, statues and figures that adorn the buildings, and the fountains. They all speak to each particular city in such a unique way that is only explainable if you are standing right there. This Hauptmarkt was home to philosopher Karl Marx for 17 years.
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| Hauptmarkt |
We visited the oldest Christian
church in Germany, the Cathedral or Dom as it is referred to.
The
original Roman Cathedral was 4 times the size as the building that stands there
now. The inside is lined with many altars representing the bishops, not saints,
like we've seen in most of the churches we've been in. We didn't get to
actually see the cathedral's most holy and important relic, the supposed Holy
Robe of Christ that is kept in vault in one of the side chapels. It is a
beautiful Cathedral and actually connected to the Liebfrau Church which claims
to be the oldest Gothic church in Germany - dates back to 1235.
We grabbed a nice lunch at the Zom
Domstein back in the Hauptmarkt - which you can see in the picture behind the
fountain - where I enjoyed the area's famous Spießbraten, a delicious,
marinated piece of pork or beef that is just sooooo tender.
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| St. Peter's Fountain |
We hiked back
uptown to Roman Trier's amphitheatre that was built around A.D. 200, unfortunately
to find it closed. The 20,000 seat facility functioned more like what we could
call a modern day outdoor concert hall rather than the blood and guts gladiator
fighting spectacle that I envisioned. (I will wait for Rome for that I guess :)
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| The Amphitheatre from the Gate - not a very good view! |
Next stop was the Imperial Baths - Kaiserthermen - built in
the 1st half of the 4th century by Emperor Constantine; these were never used
because the project wasn't finished when Constantine left Trier in A.D. 316.
These are one of the largest thermal spas of the Roman Empire. It was fun to
wander around the underground tunnels and foundations and imagine the massage
rooms, saunas, steam baths and pools that existed at one time and the labor and
wood that was needed to make it work! It was quite an impressive ruin.
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| One of the many corridors in the baths |
It was getting to be shut-down time for everything...4pm...so we made our way back through town to the Basilica. This is the largest Roman structure outside of Rome.
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| Konstantin Basilica |
This was originally a throne room but the last emperor moved out in A.D. 395. Kings were housed in the building in the Middle Ages and in the 12th century archbishops had taken it over turning it into a palace. In 1856 it became a Lutheran church and it remains the leading Protestant church in Trier. It was badly damaged by bombs in WWII - there were pictures and a timeline along one of the walls showing the different restorations throughout the past 1000 years.
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| 10'x'10 squares in the ceiling = about 20W x 40L Shawna's! |
After the Basilica we headed towards the hotel to thaw out and relax before dinner. We enjoyed a nice bottle of Mosel wine and dinner at Theo's which is right next to the Port Nigra gate, very convenient! Trier was a neat little city, definitely do-able in a day or two depending on whether museum visits are in the plan. As cold as it was, it was nice that we were not bombarded with other tourists. The benefit of sight-seeing in the winter! We usually try to choose hotels with breakfast included so after we had that we packed up and drove to the city of Idar-Oberstein because Dave hadn't been and I posted a blog about my visit there back in October.
We primarily wanted to hike up to the Church in the Rock and the Castles that were high above the town.
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| Up close of the Church in the Rock |
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| At Castle Oberstein |
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| Castle Bosselstein sits atop the Church in the Rock but is below Oberstein |
And we did! Lucky for us it was a beautiful SUNNY day - but cold, probably about 15 degrees F. Unfortunately everything was closed for the winter, not opening back up until March 16th. The castles were pretty cool though, amazing at how high above the town they are which is an obvious trait that we've seen in many defense castles. We climbed a little higher through the woods and found what is called the Castle Pond where people were ice skating!
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| Ice skaters at the Castle Pond |
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| A nice sunny lounge chair on the hike back down! |
Back at level ground we found warmth in a cozy little restaurant in Idar-Oberstein for lunch before heading back home. It was a get-away but boy oh boy was it sure nice to get back home to heat!
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