Trier, Germany

If you want to get an idea of how far flung the Roman empire really was, check out Trier, Germany. It is a city of Roman ruins, all the way up in Germany! Trier is the oldest city in Germany, it dates before the Roman empire but was taken over by the Romans during their reign.

Porta Niagra, old  gate to the city

 

Outside of oldest church

In Trier is the oldest cathedral in the country. The cool thing about it is that it was built and added onto over such a long period of time that pretty much every architectural style is represented. In one spot you can see an old Roman column peaking through a newer column. The church has a "relic" inside, in a big fancy display room in a beautiful box, supposedly is Christ's robes.

inside of oldest church

Constantine's "throne hall" (very similar to Nero's in Rome)

The emperor Constantine lived in Trier. You can see ruins of his bath houses and his "throne hall". Roman remains are everywhere!

Trier felt a lot less "German" to me then some of the other towns I have seen in Germany. It actually felt a little like Italy to me. They had a market going on in the main square and everything was so beautiful.

Another fun sight is Karl Marx's house. It is now a museum about him, we got there just as they were closing and it appeared that most everything in the displays was in German or Chinese.

Natzweiler-Struhof Concentration Camp

Near the border of Germany in the Alsace region of France, a little ways from Strasbourg, up on a beautiful hill is the natzweiler-struhof concentration camp.  This particular camp was where they sent the "criminals". Because these people were considered criminals (though many of there offenses were very small) they were medically experimented on. Some of the signs described the various experiments, it was very difficult to read. Throughout the camp they had large photos of very old men and women standing where the photos were placed, these photos were of survivors of this camp who came back to see it. Very moving.

The front gate and guard tower.

A memorial

Where they burned the bodies.

A "surgical table"

There were also two little museums you could go through, one was in an original bunkhouse and the other was below the ticket office down in this huge cave that they had built at the time of the camp, to this day no one knows what the cave/bunker was for, very strange. Only a mile or two from the camp there was a resort, it's a beautiful area. Can you believe that people were vacationing right there next to it? Do you think they knew? The whole thing is just so unreal, and it really wasn't that long ago.

Fairy tale towns...

Looking for a cute fairy tale town by the river complete with halftimbered houses and a castle on the hill? Check out Bernkastel-kues. Walking around this quaint little town really does feel like a fairy tale. It sits on the beautiful Mosel river in an area well known for wine growing. Drive along the Mosel and stop at all the cute towns, and be sure to keep looking up and see how many castles you can count!