I left Cochem this morning regretfully, and headed southwest on one of the most miserable trains rides I had ever been on – having to stand in in awkward position, in an area smaller than the size of a compact car, with 8 people, 3 bikes, and 6 large bags of luggage. Not fun. A little ways southwest of Cochem lies the oldest city in Germany – Trier! Famous for 3 things – Roman ruins, a university, and a person I’ll later reveal. Also it has one of the two oldest cathedrals in Germany, the cathedral I visited earlier in the trip in Magdeburg is the rival. It’s been pretty interesting, my hotel is just a few minutes from the “Barberathermen” – Barbara Baths, the ruins of a huge bathhouse, the second biggest of the ancient world, though now it lies as little more than broken stone walls. Named after a nearby abbey, it was built in the 2nd century, and destroyed in the 5th century by those damn dirty rotten Germanian barbarians. There is still excavation and preservation work going on, including rebuilding some of the walls. A lot of the ruins were covered with protective roofs, and they indeed protected from a heavy raid today, but there is a long metal platform that stretches at an angle of the ruins with lots of informational signs along they tell you the history of it.
Next I walked through the main city center, and saw the famous Porta Nigra, The Black Gate. It’s a huge old stone gatehouse built I think in the 2nd or 3rd century, as a gate house for the 6.3km/3.9m wall around Roman Trier. There is a tour you can do, (German only annoyingly) that takes you around the wall, with the guide dressed fully like a Roman centurion. There was also a church installed, and really really annoyingly a lot of the wall sculptures and carvings have been defaced and scratched with people putting their initials or something, or just scratching parts of it. The day was mostly sunny, though some areas covered by big clouds. While walking around inside the Black Gate, it started raining hard as it was about to leave, and it rained for a long time, and I was caught again without a coat or umbrella so I spent sometime waiting in the gate. I finally just left anyway to check out some gift shops when the rain finally slowed and stopped.
Then went to the enormous Trier Cathedral. Really neat building, and very old. I can’t find out much about it, as Wikipedia is either down, or just isn’t working on my laptop right now, though it usually is. It started raiding hard again right after I left the cathedral so I just went back to my hotel as it was getting late again.
Here’s a couple up close images, full size: In the second picture, you can see a pug cut in half by a butcher in the bottom left. And the bottom right in the first picture of this fountain.
jonsjourneythroughgermany.com 
