A few weeks ago, we ventured out on our first excursion outside of Kaiserslautern. To be fair, it was my first excursion out of Kaiserslautern but Matt had been to Trier in one of his first weeks in country. Apparently, they had the best caesar salad known to man there, so we returned. Trier is the oldest city in Germany and was originally settled by the Romans. The highlights of the trip (aside from the caesar salad) were relics from the Romans.
The best part about Trier is that the train drops you off very near all the highlights. Before you even leave the train station there is a great bakery that serves fresh squeezed orange juice. Due to not knowing German well enough, we accidentally ordered 2.5 liters of OJ for 3 people. But at least we didn't pay for anymore drinks the rest of the day!
We started at the Porta Nigra (Black Gate) and the tourist center to get an English walking guidebook which was a life saver!
According to my handy-dandy guide, while the gate itself is older, the name Porta Nigra dates back to 1060. It is the largest surviving Roman city gate in the world.
The next stop was to find the rumored best Caesar salad ever tasted. Sadly, neither of the guys could remember the name or exactly where it was, so we wondered around the downtown area until we found it. And find it we did! Not only was the caesar salad excellent, the rest of the food was too!
After we had fulfilled Matt's sole purpose of returning to Trier, our next stop was the Trier Cathedral. It's only 1/4 the size of the original church that existed about 336-380 but the core, one of the giant columns and two smaller columns are all original. The rest of the gorgeous cathedral was built over the last 1500 years when construction ended around 1900. It also houses what is believed to have been Jesus's tunic or "Holy Robe" which is kept behind lock and key in a grand chapel. We were bummed you can't even see the case that it is kept in. But at least there was a picture of it near the chapel. It looks like a robe/tunic of that time period, but that's about all I can say. You can tour pretty much everywhere in the cathedral (other than the Holy Robe Chapel) including various alters and bishops' graves in the lower level. My favorite part, it was free!
In our wanderings, we also saw St. George's Fountain which featured St. George with his sword through a dragon's head. It was pretty and I am fond of St. George since I went to school at a place called St. George and it was one of my favorite books growing up.
Next we passed by the Electoral Palace on our way to some Roman relics. It is a gorgeous building and on such a nice day there were lots of people in the gardens and on the big lawn in front of the building. It was built in the 1600s and is still used today as the seat of the District government. The lawn also featured a great place to people watch (which we didn't do much of as we mostly passed through) as it featured 2 people practicing tight rope walking, a bunch of kids practicing parkour, and lots of 20-somethings hanging out.
Our next stop was at the Roman Barbara Baths that date from the 4th century and are the 5th largest baths in the Roman Empire. They had excavated a seriers of underground service tunnels and since we were the only ones investigating them, we let Sydney run free. She was a very happy dog. And we were happy people since it was underground and a nice break from the sun. Later we tested out Sydney's "hard core parkour" abilities and had her running and jumping allover the place. No worries, we weren't breaking any rules and she loved being off the leash for a while.
Our last stop was the Roman Ampitheater that dates from the 2nd century. It held about 20,000 people and hosted many bloody games and executions. Matt conquered the beast Sydney with the greatest of ease before we toured down below. I was most disappointed of this stop. Not only was it the most expensive, it was also the most "modern". The cellar area is obviously supported by all new beams and has modern lighting as well. You definitely lost the feeling of seeing something from the 2nd century when you went down there. But again, it was cool and a break from the sun.
Trier was overall a very cool place to visit. We got to see things older than I could even imagine, and would never see back home in the good old USA. It is amazing to me that things could even be that old. Nothing in our country even goes back past the 1600's. Definitely a great place to start this German adventure!!
Noelle
