The Ramblers first visited Trier twenty years ago while I taught in the Study Abroad program at Kennesaw State University. Although teaching in Study Abroad is by no means  a vacation for the teacher, we did have the week-ends free.  This allowed us to see a good bit of the Alsace-Lorraine countryside in the little Peugeot we had rented before leaving the US. One week-end we decided to head north and cross the border into Germany. Since the EU was already operational, we didn’t have to show our passports but simply drove across the border into Germany where so many lives had been lost in 1944-45,

I know I took some photos in the dark days before digital cameras, and they are around somewhere but unfortunately I haven’t found them yet. It would have been fun to compare then with now. This time, we would see the high points of Trier with our guide and then have some free time to wander around the city on our own. Our bus left at 8:30 AM and we wouldn’t have to get back to the ship until 1:00 PM.

There have been settlements in Trier since the third millennium before Christ, and the Roman Emperor Augustus founded a thriving city here in 15 BC—making it Germany’s oldest city. Ancient Trier was both a scenic and strategic location—being situated on the Mosel River helped the city to control all commerce coming to and from the Mosel and the Rhine River. It eventually grew into a proper Roman city of great wealth and importance. In fact, the post ultimately became known as Roma Segunda, or Second Rome, for its opulence. (Today Trier has a little more than 100,000 inhabitants.)

Eventually, surrounding Germanic tribes posed a large enough threat for the Romans to build a city wall around AD 200. It was four miles long and originally had five iron gates. They hoped to protect Trier’s center from the invasions that inevitably began  in AD 275.

Over the centuries, Trier would face invasion and turmoil again and again. From 1797 to 1815, the city was occupied by Napoleonic France, which led to the city’s cultural and financial decline. After passing into Prussia’s hands in 1815, the city experienced rapid growth once more, until it was occupied by the French once again during World War I and later substantially damaged during World War II.

The most visible Roman structure in the historic area  is the dark and somewhat forbidding Porta Nigra or Black Gate. It absolutely can’t be missed, so it has become a prominent meeting point for tourists and locals as it really stands out. As I waited in the open square in front of the Porta for our group to re-assemble that morning, we were treated to a concert by a local student choir.

The Senior Rambler decided he wanted to stay on board that morning so I was on my own.  Luckily the historic area of Trier is easy to navigate, so there was no danger of my getting lost. 

I had read that  the Holy Robe, a relic venerated for centuries by Christians was enshrined at St. Peter’s Cathedral. It is believed to be the seamless robe that was worn by Christ on the day he was crucified. Since I love all things medieval, I was happy to see that our group of Gentle Walkers was heading towards the amazing double cathedral which includes the Dom or Church of Saint Peter and the Liebfrauen Kirche or the Church of our Lady, They are connected by a cloister and make up a large and imposing double church. 

One building that is next to the historic center that I would have enjoyed visiting was the Aula Palatina, better known as the Basilica  of Constantine probably built by Constantine, ca. 310 AD. Of course it is a UNESCO World Heritage site but, as I learned, most of the current building is a reconstruction. Still it would have been worth seeing.

At times both a basilica in the Roman sense, that is, a public building, and a palace, the Aula Palatina became the residence of the Bishop of Trier during the Middle Ages, it currently serves as a Protestant Church. By the 19th century, Constantine’s Basilica had fallen into disrepair. The Prussian government restored its exterior to its Roman form, and then turned it over to the Protestants. Unfortunately the much of the basilica burned during an Allied air raid in 1944. When the Germans restored it after WWII, they did not re-create the interior decorations which had been restored by the Prussians in the 19th century. The interior has a stark, Protestant look, almost modern in in its simplicity.

So much of medieval Germany was destroyed during WWII that the Germans became restoration experts and it is sometimes hard to tell new from old, especially when original material was used. 

As I walked along the large open heart, the marketplace-plaza  of historic Trier, I couldn’t help but notice the tall medieval buildings built on each side, interspersed with shops. One, I learned later was the birthplace of Karl Marx. Right in the middle of the plaza was a perfect site for a market and so we had to dodge vans unloading flowers, fruits and vegetables and items of clothing  with which the shopkeepers hoped to attract both tourists and locals.

Our guide pointed out various sites and explained a little about the churches as we walked through them, but our guided tour this morning was not very long. It seemed we would have quite a bit of time to ourselves in Trier. The only caveat was that we had to be back at the Porta by 12:30 as our boat was sailing at 1:00. Our first stop was the Dom of St. Peter. It is the oldest church in Germany.  Construction of the Dom dates to 1270, although the nave was built of Roman brick (hard to see now) which dates to the 4th century AD. Additions were built over the centuries in the style of the time, but the Church still has an essentially Romanesque feel. It is darker and more solid than the Gothic Church of our Lady next door. Trier was heavily bombed during 1944, and the cathedral suffered quite a bit of damage. It would take a few years before it reopened but is today, a working parish of the Catholic  Church.

Although the interior, while impressive is lacking in color., many of the statues have an exuberant  Baroque feel which lightens up the church. As soon as our tour ended, I returned on my own  to the side chapel that contains the Holy Robe, purportedly the robe worn by Christ on the day of his crucifixion. More about this later. Unfortunately I found that the entrance to the chapel which holds the Robe is up a long and steep flight of stairs Fortunately there was a handrail and  I was determined to achieve  my goal. I felt a touch of disappointment though, when I reached the the chapel entrance, somewhat hot and sweaty, because the door  was locked..

Unfortunately , you can’t see anything of the Holy Robe , as it is tucked away in a case inside the chapel which is guarded by a serious set of iron bars. It has been on view many times since the 1500s but not recently.

The Robe was last exhibited in 2012, and processed through the city by an ecumenical group of Catholics and Protestants numbering over a million people who waited patiently to view the relic. The Robe  has not been tested with modern methods to determine its age.  However, through the centuries, the fabric has deteriorated and in the 19th century it was given a rubberized coating to protect it. Of course, this only made its condition worse. If thoughts generated by the ancient garment, and it is old, are positive, why not appreciate it for what it is thought to be? The earliest recorded history of the Trier Holy Robe places it at St. Peter’s Dom  in 1196. Tradition holds that it was brought from Jerusalem by St. Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, in the fourth century. It has never been scientifically dated, and many believe it dates only from medieval times. There are several other churches that claim a version of the Holy Robe. One is a monastery in France and the others are Orthodox Churches in Georgia, St. Petersburg and Moscow.

According to the Argenteuil tradition, the Byzantine Empress Irene  made a gift of the seamless robe to Charlemagne around the year 800. Charlemagne gave it to his daughter Theocrate,  abbess of Argenteuil, near Paris, where it was preserved in the church of the Benedictines. In 1793, the parish priest, fearing that the robe would be desecrated in the French Revolution, cut the robe into pieces and hid them in separate places. Only four of the pieces remain. They were moved to the present church of Argenteuil in 1895.

The earliest document referring to the robe at Argenteuil dates from 1156, written by Archbishop Hugh of Rouen. He described it, however, as the garment of the child Jesus. There has been long-running argument over what the Argenteuil cloth actually was. The supporters of the Holy Robe say it is was never the seamless robe worn by Jesus during the crucifixion, but the garments woven for him by the Virgin Mary and worn his entire life. Advocates of the theory that the Argenteuil cloth is the seamless robe claim that the Trier robe is actually Jesus’s mantle. Since the Argenteuil garment is now in pieces, it would be very difficult to reconstruct the original garment. 

Orthodox tradition also venerates a Holy Robe of their own in Georgia. It was supposedly brought to Georgia by a Rabbi who had bought it from a Roman soldier after the crucifixion. Since the 17th century it has been buried beneath a monument inside an ancient cathedral, and is obviously not able to be seen.  There are  also several other robes that at venerated at churches in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

After lighting a candle and saying a few prayers in this imposing and spiritual place. I found my way out of the Dom and into Our Lady’s Church  next door.

the Liebfrauen Kirche has a very different look, as it was built in the Gothic style. Its  many stained glass windows bring in light and color. It is also interesting because the church itself was built in a round cruciform shape, very unusual. The interior shape is not readily visible from the exterior but once inside you can see that instead of being oblong, as churches usually are, this one is round. 

Finally leaving the Church complex behind, I slowly headed back to the Porta Nigra to meet up with the rest of the Gentle Walkers. If only I had realized it, the Aula Palatine was located just around the back of the massive St. Peter’s Dom. 

Along the way I noticed what looked like road construction. However, the sizable  dug-up area was covered with canvas. This I had never seen anywhere before, so I walked over to take a closer look and found, not surprisingly, what had been uncovered was the remains of Roman pavement. Hopefully the authorities had stopped the construction to think about what they were going to do with all this antique pavement after they made their discovery. 

Trier is a pleasant place for walking, there are tourists of course, but you do not see the pulsing crowds that are found in cities like Heidelberg. Soon I spotted a few of my fellow walkers hanging about near the double gates of the Porta. There aren’t too many places to sit down so my friends were perched on bollards and walls while they waited for our bus. We enjoyed the performance of a school choir which had set up in front of the Tourist Information Center They made the time pass quickly. Soon we were headed back to the River Queen, to continue along the Moselle towards Strasbourg. Our next stop would be the charming small town of Bernkastel where we would dock overnight.