Monday September 21st 2026

Today we headed out for a day trip to Trier, a city further down the Mosel River, and the oldest in Germany. It was one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. It has a number of Roman monuments and cathedrals listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites. The train from Cochem took just over an hour and it was a short walk from the train station to the Porta Nigra, our first stop. This was one of four gates and is the only still standing. It was converted to two churches, one on the top and one on the bottom, which protected it from being pulled down to reuse the materials in other projects. Admission is 6 EUR. You can walk all around the inside and there are good views from the top level.

Afterwards we wandered down the main street and then down a side street where G found some decent coffee.

By this time we were close to our next stop, Trier Cathedral. The earliest part of the cathedral was built of Roman brick in the 4th century but the today’s cathedral is the result of various additions over the years. We also went through the cloisters.

We then wandered over to the Aula Palatina, also known as the Basilica of Constantine. It is the largest surviving Roman hall. It is pretty impressive. It was originally part of a palace complex. We wandered around the palace gardens and then worked out where we could enter. The building is now an evangelical church and you can wander in and around for free.

It was now lunch time so we headed back to the cathedral and got a table in the garden at Weinstube Kesselstatt. We got in just before the lunchtime rush which was good. Most tables filled up. They have typical local dishes which we enjoyed with a big choice of wine. I also got to try Federweisser a partially fermented young wine which is only available around this time of the year. Being partially fermented it was sweet and bubbly. The weather was beautiful, no one lit up a smoke near us, so we took our time and enjoyed this lunch.

We still had one more major site to see in Trier, the Imperial Baths. There were extensive ruins above ground which were pretty impressive. We were really surprised though once we went underground by the extent of the passage ways. They also had a tower from where you could get a good view of the whole site.

We stopped at the shops on our way back to the train to pick up a charger because I’d left mine somewhere earlier in our trip. Then once back in Cochem we walked to the supermarket to pickup breakfast and dinner supplies. It’s always so interesting to compare supermarkets overseas with ours. For one, we don’t have alcohol on sale at supermarkets. I also noticed that the drinks sections takes up a lot of floor space. We struggled to find the canned tuna because it occupied such a small section of shelf.

This is post is part of NaBloPoMo. Check out San’s blog for all the details and to join in yourself.