Trier 13.09.2015
Close to Luxembourg there is a small German town Trier. It’s notable as the oldest town in Germany. Ancient Romans started to build it at 15BC. Interesting that a lot of buildings are still in quite a good shape. Slaves did a great job back in old times.
In those times the town was surrounded by a wall and it was possible to enter inside only through special gates. One of such a gate is Porto Negra.
The building is interesting as it's a kind of a double gate. It works in the way, that the visitors enter the first gate and then it's closed. So the visitors are in closed box, so all newcomers can be easily shot in case of need. Then once visitors are checked the second gate opens and they are allowed to enter the city.
One can go inside and check as it was looking from the guards position. There are guides dressed in ancient clothes, though I'm not sure if they are workers just for these gates.
From this point you can see the street leading to the city centre, to its historical part.
Any tourist will easily note that in this city people love miniature monuments at the walls. In the central part of city you can find something almost on every building. That’s cool.
There are two cathedrals next to the square: Cathedral of St. Peter and Church of Our Lady. Monuments were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.
It’s quite usual inside, without any delights.
This day I wasn’t too lucky with the weather. After the lunch started the drizzle and it became stronger and stronger and finally turned into rain. Therefore we had to hide in different historical building on the way. Fortunately there were a plenty of those quite close to each other.
One of the points was a huge cathedral. It looks like it was rebuilt from some Roman building into a place of worship.
And of course the arena left from Romans. They could not survive without it.
Well, though in this place it’s not usual. Here they have additional underground floor with cell for gladiators (maybe also for animals). This is the first time I’ve seen it.
By the time rain became really heavy. Fortunately I had an umbrella and there was a catacomb to hide (:
Though that was not that bad. After a while rain started to calm down and then completely finished.
You should be careful inside. Otherwise you can catch a number of insects in your pockets or even under your clothes (:
After arena we headed to Roman bridge which was built about 2000 years ago. It’s not in a bad shape for such an old bridge (:
Along the road there are old Roman baths. It was accidentally discovered here when city decided to build here yet another shopping mall. They started to dig ground for basement and here we are. Roman baths.
One of the most unexpected sights in the city - Karl Marx museum. Yes, he was born exactly in this city. One more reason to visit it (: