Day 30 3 countries

The view from the (car) window this morning

It’s impossible to get the car window clean enough but you get the idea…

beautiful,beautiful, beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our destination today, the oldest city in Germany,Trier - founded in or before 16BC. To get there we drove through Belgium for a little bit and, because we had some time to kill at the end of the day, we dipped into Luxembourg…3 countries in 1 day? No problem for AllansAbroad ;)

This is the welcome into the city of Trier.

Porta Nigra (black gate) built between 186 ND 200 one of four gates that protected the city. I couldn’t get back for enough to get it all in! I know my photographer friends would never be caught without the right lenses.

This is looking back at the gate from the city side, Becca will notice the scaffolding – you’re not the only one having this muck up your view and your pics. One of the downsides of low season tourism.
 

 

One of the things I like about these well-preserved ancient towns is that they are very walkable.

We followed the tourist path (you can see MGM consulting the guide)

and this is what we saw

Hauptmarkt (main market) there’s been a market here since 882AD

 

 

 

Trier Dom (Cathedral of Saint Peter)

 

IKR?!Seemed more like a Cathedral complex than one church.

We had amazing access to the whole complex for free. We walked all over...

Downstairs into the basement, expecting to be told "you can't go there"

 

There was a plaque that seemed to record the bishops of the church starting in 255 and going through to the incumbent who took up his position in 2005…impressive no?

Outside into the cloislter, still unimpeded! marvelous

That pink is the result of the sun on the windows, how pretty.

One thing we do miss out on traveling in winter as we do is the effect of the sun on stained glass but not today. Today we were treated to some truly stunning displays of sun on glass.

Look at what the sun did in another linked church in this complex, Liebfrauenkirche (church of Our Lady) the oldest gothic church in Germany

 

 

We walked to the far edge of the tourist route to see the reamins of Roman Baths.

 

Another gob-smaking building is the Konstantinbasilika (Basilica of Constantine) surprising in its lack of adornment. It was built by the emperor Constantine  at the beginning of the 4th century and contains the largest hall still existing from antiquity. It was once pretty fancy and used as a throne room, palace room but now it’s an evangelical church so no pretty stuff just simple brick walls and huge volume, so strange to see such a large ceiling space not held up by columns or arches.
 

 

So then, just because we could we went on to Luxembourg

 

 

 

one more church for today Notre-Dame 

 

 

 

 

And the sun sets on another delightful day, I’m so enjoying this trip and know that I am very lucky… very, very lucky to have this opportunity.