2 Year Anniversary: Trier, Germany

Sunday was our 2 year wedding anniversary! I must say, the second year was much more stressful and trying than our first year. Actually, despite Greg being deployed for most of it, our first year of marriage was a cakewalk compared to this past year. Hopefully year three will be a little more quiet!

Trier is near the Luxembourg boarder. If you remember, Greg can't leave a 2 hour radius until February at the earliest. So, we took a day trip to Trier to see the Roman ruins. Supposedly, Trier is Germany's oldest city and is approximated to be 1,300 years older than Rome. Many of the ruins were originally constructed around 300 AD. It was kind of like getting to see some highlights of Italy without all of the horrible things everyone has told us about visiting Italy (ie: crowds, horrible smells and crime).

We started the day at Porta Nigra, the old city gate. I was constructed originally in the 2nd century. Previously, there was a wall surrounding the city that still exists in some areas.

From there, we walked around the city a little bit and saw some other sites, mostly the same typical stuff you see in every German town, churches.

Core of the Dom dates back to 350 AD

One church in particular, Constantine's Basilika, was formerly the throne room of Roman Emperor Constantine, best known for essentially creating the Catholic church and forming modern Christianity. It has since been converted into a protestant church and was not open to the public on Sundays, so we only got to see the outside. Greg commented that he didn't believe it was old enough to have been built in 306 AD.

It is exceptionally plain on the outside.

Our next stop took us to the Roman Amphitheater. Earliest records of the aphitheater date it back to 100 AD. Greg thought this was one of the best things we've seen since moving to Germany. Although there isn't much to the amphitheater but grass and rocks, it was pretty cool to see how effective the design is. You could easily stand in the center and speak and have it projected throughout the arena without much effort at all. Greg tested this out by quoting his favorite parts from Batman. There was also an area that had maps from the city as it was during the peak of Roman influence and showed the different land marks that were still around today. Unfortunately, it started to rain pretty heavily while we were there. I forgot my umbrella, of course, so Greg ended up getting soaking wet.

The best part of the amphitheater was the underground network of tunnels and baths left over from the gladiators and actors that once entertained the citizens of Trier. Most of the woodwork under the amphitheater is actually original, as it was preserved by the climate under the earth. It was pretty awesome to walk along the same paths that the gladiators once stood.

A rare picture of me considering I'm usually behind the camera.

 Our last major location to visit was the Roman bath complex that began construction in the 4th century.

The baths also had an extensive underground network of tunnels meant for servants to bring food and supplies to the complex. A lot of it was fenced off as they are frequently doing archaeological digs in the area. The tunnels were extremely muddy and only lit by small openings to the outside from above.

On our way back to the car, we also walked past the home where Karl Marx was born and a pretty cool museum that allowed you to see some of the excavations that had been done in the city of Trier and get a glimpse of what the ruins look like under all of the more modern buildings. We didn't go into the Karl Marx house because we weren't interested. The museum was closed by the time we walked past at 3:30 pm. Germans do not screw around with working on Sundays. All stores and many restaurants are closed on Sundays and most of the touristy areas open late and close early.

After seeing everything we cared to, we drove home and ate sushi. Actually, we tried to eat at around 6:30 but wouldn't be seated because we didn't have a reservation. We finally got in a 9:00. It was good sushi, but still not as good as in America. I feel like that's a common occurrence anywhere we go. German's aren't exactly known for their culinary prowess.

As far as visiting places in Germany, we're pretty over it. All of the cities look exactly the same. It was pretty cool to see the Roman ruins and realize just how strong the architecture had to be for these building to still be standing, but the rest of Trier looked exactly like our city. Aside from hiking or snowboarding trips, I don't see us visiting many more German cities. Maybe we'll eventually go to Berlin, but it isn't very high on our list of things we'd like to do. We don't have any plans to travel any time soon since our trip to Garmisch was ruined by the Army. Hopefully, we'll come up with something fun to do again soon!