May madness continued with a trip to the oldest city in Germany, Trier. The city proudly boasts of 1300 years as an established settlement with Celtic tribes living at the site of the modern city before even the Romans came to settle there. Once they did though, it became the favoured residence outside of Rome itself for many years. Trier's Roman heritage is almost immediately evident to the visitor as one must pass through the Porta Nigra (black gate), an ancient gatehouse built in the latter half of the second century A.D. It is actually more than just a gate, rising three stories high and with an inner courtyard where invaders could be surrounded by sentries who patrolled the upper floors of the fortification. The entire structure is built out of large cut stones which are joined with metal fastenings in places, but no mortar. From the lookout point at the top of the Porta Nigra, once can see the heart of Trier laid out along its market square which dates back to 978 when the city was first granted the right to hold a market.
We had been worried about the weather because the forecast had called for pouring rain the entire day in Cologne, but we hoped we had gone far enough south (3 hours by train) to avoid the showers. It had been cloudy for the better part of the journey, but now the sun was shining brightly as we walked into he market. The square is surrounded with beautiful old houses and shops which really do make the city seem older than most I've visited. The cross which marks the centre of the market isn't extremely old itself, but the stone base it is secured in is still stonework from nearly tow centuries earlier. On the far corner of the market, is the huge St. George�s fountain which flows all year round.
Our next stop, was the river M�sel which runs along he eastern part of the city. The shade of the trees along the river bank offered a nice break from the now warm sun and we had a snack.
From there we headed back into town to see some of the Roman ruins, but first passed by the house of Karl Marx. The house is now a museum of his life and work, but there was just so much to read with nearly all the wall space devoted to sings, that we decided the day would be better spent outside in the sun. We had read that the builders of a new bank building had stumbled upon the remains of a huge Roman bath house in the last few years, and we wanted to have a look, but when we came to the part of town where it was supposed to be, we could see the bank, but no ruins. There was a large glass cube the size of a small office building, and it turns out, the ruins are inside below ground. The glass cube lets you look in at them even when the exhibit is closed. I'm not sure if it was open or not, but we managed to walk in anyway. There was chess tournament inside for young kids, and nobody else, but there was no sign saying it was closed, so we wandered through the baths which are actually really really big and extended well beyond the scope of the glass cube overhead. Unfortunately all of the signs seemed to have two layers, and the text was written on both , but they weren't perfectly aligned which produced a very blurry final result which was nearly impossible to read.
We moved along to the old amphitheatre on the edge of downtown. Since the Roman emperors had made Trier a residence, there needed to be a place for gladiators and fighting. This amphitheatre comes out of the side of a hill, and the y used the dirt they dug out of the one side, to build up the mount on the other side . the circular area that surrounds it once provided seating for 20,000 people. You can walk all around the area, and even go underground where they used to keep all of the equipment for the shows, and where the thousand year old drainage system still collects the water from drains above and takes it away though a series of wells and canals.
Now, by this time, we had to start making choices. There was still a lot to see in Trier, lots of old churches, some very sell spoken of museums, and a electoral palace where the electoral princes of Trier had been able to help select the kings of Germany, an old library with many interesting documents, but we only had a short while left before our train would leave, and we needed three hours to get back to Cologne. We settled on looking at the cathedral in the centre of town, and managed to get about two minutes inside before they closed up. The Cathedral is just amazing though, and if we could, I think we�d go back. It is very intricately decorated, and just huge. I don't think we managed to fit it into any photographs.
But now, with the city closing up and having walked around for about six hours in a row, we decided to have a nice dinner before boarding the train back home to Cologne. I wonder if the Romans ate pizza?
