The plan for the afternoon was to take a hike on the opposite bank of the river. This morning Rachael mapped out a ten or eleven mile route, a two eared construct with one ear going downriver along a hiking path through the woods above the wall of red cliffs just east of the city, and the other climbing up to a point up the ridge wher Rachael assures me that the views of the city will be outstanding.
Added on top of this morning’s loop, another ten or eleven miles adds up to a pretty long day for me. I’m thinking that I’ll just walk one of the ears, and after some discussion we decide on the one promising spectacular views.
On the way, at my suggestion we divert slightly to stop by the Porta Nigra.
In the Hauptmarkt again. The building on the left is identified on the map as the Red Building. The one on the right is unlabeled though. The White Building, perhaps.
The Porta Nigra, the world’s best preserved Roman gate, from AD 170. Also, note the group of bike travelers clustered in the foreground. A more ephemeral attraction than the Porta Nigra, but still interesting.
This group (including the unseen photographer) from Mainz are biking up the Mosel from Koblenz to Metz. They called me over to take their group photo, and handed me their strange, boxy camera. I took a photo and was about to take a second when the woman looked alarmed and told me to stop. I looked down and was startled to see a photo rolling out. A Polaroid!
We cross the river over the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge, and almost immediately start asking through a nondescript neighborhood without much of interest to distract us from the hot afternoon sun.. After about two miles of this I start to lose interest in the project. We look at the map together, see that there appears to be a good mile or of this before getting into the woods, so I beg off from the rest of the hike. I’m just slowing Rachael down anyway, so I peel off and head back to the Altstadt. I decide to return to the Electoral Palace for a second look because most of its facade was in the shade this morning.
Back at our room Rachael shows up about two hours later, and reports a disappointing hike. She finall broke out of the neighborhoods and into the woods, but the great views never did materialize at all. All she could see were the trees around her. She doesn’t know for sure what went wrong, but it was clearly a mapping malfunction of some kind. I think this is the only time I can remember her returning feom a walk like this and disappointed by it.
The view down the Mosel from the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge.
The young Zollkran (customs crane), seen from the Roman Bridge. I wish I’d done my research here, because just around the bend is the old crane, built about 300 years earlier on an older design.
This wonderful streamlike fountain is a toddler magnet. Every time we passed by there we’re kids hopping from stone to stone and splashing in the gaps.
Scott AndersonTo Jen RahnI had the same feeling. I’m pretty sure it would create an incident though if I took off my shoes and hopped in. Reply to this comment 3 years ago
The plan for the morning is to get to breakfast at seven and then dash over to the cathedral at eight, getting there before the nine o’clock service so that we can see the interior. We do that, arriving just after eight. Unfortunately the cathedral is not open yet. There’s a sign by the door saying (we think) that it opens at 6:30, but that’s obviously incorrect. We look around, see the cathedral tourism office that we missed seeing before, and see the current visitors schedule in its window. It won’t open until 10, which is too late for us. We decide we’ve seen a lot of what Trier has to offer, and it’s time to hit the road.
The Basilicata. We saw a partial view of it yesterday but this gives a better sense of its immensity.
So the White House has a name after all. This is the Steipe - or a replacement for the original, built in about 1430, which burned to the ground in the Second World War.
Jacquie GaudetWe had a morning in Trier on our tour in 2015 and managed to see the interior of the Dom but the Liebfrauenkirche was closed every time we went by too. Reply to this comment 3 years ago
