Trier – Roman Ruins around every turn

Trier is the biggest city in the region between Ramstein and Spangdahlem and also happened to be the location of a large Roman City chock full of ruins from millennia ago…so, we had to visit.

The most impressive sight at first glance was the Porta Nigra, or Black Gate, the only surviving of four original gates into the city.  Its weathered and blackened stones gave it a very distinct appearance compared with most other Roman ruins we’d seen.  It still amazes us every time we see Roman ruins still standing intact after so many years, wars, storms and civilizations.

The main pedestrian-only street was packed with Germans out enjoying the sunny, summer morning.  We next stopped by the cathedral, the site of the first Christian church in Germany, commissioned by Constantine at the same time as St. Peter’s in Rome in 326 A.D.  What was incredible was that the original church was 4 times larger than the current, still very spacious church (you could see the location of the original cornerstone a hundred feet in front of the current façade.

The kids were excellent inside and saw votive candles in the Catholic church for the first time.  Callum really wanted to light a candle and said a prayer for kids everywhere to not lose their toys and lovies in fires. 

After sauntering around the garden, we braved a long McDonald’s line on the main square to buy chicken nuggets for the kids.  After staving off the hunger pangs, we walked back to the church and had lunch at a lovely outdoor restaurant with a great view of the façade of the small church next door (the churches were literally touching).  Like many other times on the trip, we were the only ones with small children and they behaved admirably.

 With Claire’s naptime time bomb slowly ticking towards zero, we decided to squeeze in a couple of big heavy-hitting Roman sites.  The first was the grand basilica, the largest intact Roman structure outside Rome…and boy was it big.  Originally the throne room for the Emperor when he visited, it had a huge, spacious interior that could easily fit the entire Porta Nigra inside.  Nowadays, it is the Lutheran church in town.

You can get an idea exactly how big the basilica is by comparing it to the 4 story Baroque building in the foreground below.  The basilica still dwarfs it from behind. 

Claire was showing here tiredness, but on we went several more minutes until we reached the Roman baths.  These were commissioned and built by Constantine, but never finished.  They were to be the most complex in the entire empire with two subterranean levels which made for some excellent exploring!  We immediately descended via a staircase into a series of long and tall hallways with crossing hallways as well. 

As we turned whichever way suited us at the moment, we became happily lost in the labyrinth. The kids held flashlights and had a blast running up and down the corridors and exploring obscure and blocked tunnels.  In the ceiling of many of the tunnels were sky lights which made for a cool visual lighting effect.

After we exhausted all the passageways, we climbed back up and looked around the ground level at the arches of the walls while the kids put on a little show for us. 

We had no idea we would see such awesome Roman ruins in Germany – a great day!