Trier, Germany

Saturday August 14^th Trier, Germany

We arrived here yesterday afternoon. The trip from Wurzburg to here was quite pretty. For part of it, we travelled along the Moselle River Valley seeing lots of vineyards, old fortress castles along the river and nice little towns. Once we get on the train, it’s always a relaxing day to sit in comfort and watch the countryside go by. Once we got here, it took us half an hour to walk from the train station to our hotel, much of it through the tourist pedestrian area. These walks are no problem since we packed light. On the way, it seemed like there were a lot of tourists and when we got to our hotel (which had also seemed a bit expensive at 120 euros per night) we found out why.

This is the big Roman Festival weekend of the year. Two thousand years ago, Trier was Augusta Treverorum, a Roman city. There are lots of Roman sites around including 9 different Unesco World Heritage Sites. At the old Imperial Baths park there are dozens of old canvas tents and people dressed in togas camping for the weekend, demonstrating old Roman skills and equipment and selling crafts. At the old amphitheatre, which we toured this morning, there is some kind of swords and sandals pageant with German TV actors in it, with shows in the afternoon and evening. the amphitheatre is built into a hill and used to seat 20,000. We paid 3 euros each to get in and wander around by ourselves including into the old cellars below the main floor where the gladiators and animals would be kept until they were needed onstage.

There are lots of things going on. Who knew? We just thought this might be an interesting stop and it was the right distance between Wurzburg and Brussels, our next destination.

Anyway, we did get to see some German band playing in the main square this morning and another a capella group this afternoon. It was a beautiful, sunny morning. This afternoon is clouding over again. We’ve seen quite a bit of damp weather over the last few weeks.

Last night we had a good fish dinner with dry white wine at a little “Weinhaus” restaurant just down the street. Tonight we’ve picked another old family-owned restaurant just off the main tourist area near the Porta Nigra (the Black Gate). This big gate building is supposed to be the best preserved Roman gate north of the Alps. It really is kind of black.

Tomorrow we’re taking the 9:52 train an hour or so to Luxembourg City and then catching another train to Brussels, Belgium.