The Roman City Trier (June 21th)

The Roman Empire was a vast empire consisting of enormous amounts of land and people. Julius Caesar was one of the first people to conquer the Gallic (Germanic Tribes) of this area.  It is not uncommon to be traveling throughout Europe and find Roman ruins or towns. Trier is a town close to the border of France and is a well known northern Roman city. 

To switch things up today we took the train to Trier instead of driving there. We waited for the train for several minutes. This train ride was my dad's first experience in Europe, so he was pretty excited to try out the train. When we arrived in Trier the first thing that we saw was the Porta Negra (the Black Gate). This gate is the last of the remaining Roman gates into the city. It is the called the Black Gate because of how dark and dirty the stones are.

We began our tour of the city with the dome church. It was a large church complex consisting of the an older romanesque church with a newer gothic church right next door. It was quite a large church I have to admit. Outside the church there was an couple performing opera songs. They did many songs that I knew so I sat and listened. The platz outside of the church was a natural acoustical spot. Sound travelled very easily and could be heard from across the square with clarity.

Romanesque Church

Older Romanesque + New Gothic (right)

Gothic Church

The inside equaled the opulence on the outside.  The altar was definitely something to take notice of. One of the striking features was the organ. The organ did not look like any other organ I have seen before. It looked as if suspended in the air. It was pretty cool. The notable thing about the church was the pilgrims walk. Pilgrims and tourists alike take this walk to see the treasures of the church and the prized possession of the church, the robe of Jesus (the one that we wore, but not the shroud he died in). I am skeptical of most religious relics. I know that back in the day, one could sell relics on the street. There are hundreds of pieces of the cross and the nails of Jesus Christ. As a historian, I desire documentation or factual evidence to prove the authenticity of something. I would like to beleive that the church has the robe that Jesus wore, but I believe that this artifact would not have survived this long, nor is it the one that he wore. How do we really know? Faith.

Organ

View facing the altar

View from above the altar

Inside here is a tomb holding the robes of Jesus Christ

If one were to go into the treasury room, one would come into contact with ornate jeweled bibles, golden staves, and other important Catholic treasures. The one that stood out among the others was St. Andrew's sandal bottom. Yep, its a relic too. 

Cloister

The newer Gothic style church right next door was very modern indeed. The stained glass windows were pretty much new, and the altar looked pretty modern. I thought it was interesting to have the old so close to the new. It is an interesting dynamic going from one space into the other. 

We proceeded onwards to Roman Emperor Constantine's Church. The church is in the Romanesque style and is essentially one massive rectangle. It was enormous inside and out. The two previous churches could fit inside. It was that tall and that open inside. The inside was pretty much austere without decoration. It was rather plain.  Before it became a church, it was the throne room. Nothing like a big throne room to impress. 

Constantine's Church/Throne Room

This picture does not do the size justice. It was larger than it appears. 

As a family we took a brief walk to the Roman Baths. We were running out of time and I wanted to see the museum before we left Trier. So I got a single picture of the baths. Plus one had to pay to get into the complex and we did not feel like doing that at the time.

One of the sites that I was sure to visit was the Archeology Museum so that I can see all of the various Roman artifacts collected over the years. The museum immediately reminded me of the British Museum but on a smaller scale. It focused primarily on the pre-historical Trier through Roman times. When I compare it to the British Museum, I am speaking about the types of things in the museum such as temples and larger architectural structures. Before walking through the museum, which was empty of all people I might add, I was given a audio guide. Sadly the audio guide was pretty much useless. I could only use the audio guide when I entered a room which gave a few sentence summary of what was there. Any other item that I found interesting I could not get any information about. Everything was in German. I should really learn German.  I walked through the museum rather quickly because I could not read about items, and I would only stop and look at things that I thought were interesting. A lot of the stuff was similar in some way.

I have to say that the museum was well laid out and planned. One moved through each room in a specific order. It had a nice flow. Plus I had the museum to myself. As a historian, I am happy to see that these objects were well presented and preserved. It makes me sad when I see historical objects or documents in environments that are not climate or humidity controlled environments. These artifacts will be here for many years to come.

When I was done, we walked back to the train station and hopped on back to the our place on the Mosel. I spent the rest of the night reading and journaling.