Trier

After spending the night in Traben-Trarbach we drove an hour over to Trier. Not only is Trier the oldest city in Germany, it also has the most well-preserved Roman ruins north of the Alps. It was on our list of places to get to while we were in Germany so we couldn't resist spending a few hours there.

This is the Porta Nigra (black gate, in Italian). It dates back to 180 AD and has blackened over the years, hence the name "Nigra".

We went inside it and wandered up to the top of it and took lots of pictures. You could look down at the main pedestrian street and the big church over on the left.

The hallways in the Porta Nigra had carvings on the walls.

Some fun buildings on the main pedestrian street:

Next we headed over to the Roman baths, which were built in the 4th century. It used to be a big building with a courtyard in front of it but now of course it's just ruins. The back of the building is still somewhat intact:

A closer look:

An even closer look:

There were lots of dark and spooky underground tunnels to explore as well.

There were also lots of churches in Trier. We went into three ... Constantine's basilica, the Liebfrauenkirche, and the Cathedral of Saint Peter which is the big main church in Trier. Constantine's basilica was originally just a big throne room for Emperor Constantine but it eventually got converted into a church. It's just one enormous room, no pillars or stained glass or anything fancy. It's pretty neat. The Liebfrauenkirche had a lot of nice stained glass ... mostly modern in design but very colorful and I could sit and look at it all for hours. The main church had all clear glass in its windows and it was very bare compared to most other churches. Here's a pic of the outside of Constantine's Basilica ... this entire building is just one big room on the inside:

There was something wrong with our big camera that made it take fuzzy pictures but the only pictures of Saint Peter's that we got were with the big camera so here's a fuzzy picture of the outside of it. Actually, Saint Peter's is on the left and the Liebfrauenkirche is the slightly darker and shorter part of the building toward the right:

Saint Peter's is the oldest church in Germany and it houses the Holy Robe, which Jesus supposedly wore when he died so it's worth seeing the picture of it even if it is fuzzy (it's also worth a visit!). And here is a slightly fuzzy picture of part of the main pedestrian square:

And that rounded out our 3 hours in Trier. We could have visited many museums there as well but we weren't in the mood to do all that reading in German. There were also a few more churches, more roman ruins, and Karl Marx's house, to name a few things. Plus shopping and tons of weinguts (where you can taste wines from the region). We should go wine tasting in this area sometime because the grapes are all grown on really steep hills there and we want to know how/if that changes the flavors of the wines.

Traben-Trarbach

This weekend we finally got around to using the gift certificate to the Bellevue hotel in Traben-Trarbach, which is almost two hours northwest of Bad Dürkheim. The gift certificate covered a night at the hotel and a 5-course dinner for two (and breakfast the next day, but that's included in the overnight charge). We had to pay for our wine and water we had with dinner but that was it! Oh and the massages we treated ourselves to. :)

Traben-Trarbach straddles the Mosel river, with Traben on one side and Trarbach on the other. When we were there the Mosel was in some sort of flood stage so it was pretty impressive. This is a view taken from the bridge between the two towns, looking toward Trarbach:

And looking toward Traben. Our hotel is the taller white building (with the turret! Our room was at the top of the turret) right on the river in the middle of the picture:

And this is one of the coal barges that travels on the river. The Mosel is pretty windy so it's impressive that something so long can be maneuvered along it:

We found a little Weinstube for lunch and Martin had some käsespätzle. YUM.

And here is our awesome hotel room. It was very large with a nice sitting area overlooking the river but the green shag carpet has got to go:

Aside from the shag carpeting, the hotel was pretty spectacular. Welcome drinks, spa, sauna, candles lit every time you sat at a table for anything, the food for our 5-course dinner was delicious, and there were free newspapers and champagne for breakfast! And here's the size of the wine list we had to navigate for dinner:

It was the size of my master's thesis. We ended up just ordering the recommended wine for the evening!

The roofs of Traben, taken from our hotel room:

Trarbach, also taken from our hotel room. I like the white church that's a little up the hill from the town. It's like wherever you are, the church is looking down at you. We didn't walk over to it (it was cold, windy, and rainy so we made it down the main street in Trarbach then hurried back to the hotel).

In conclusion, this is a great little town to visit for a few days of wine tasting and stay at the Bellevue and get a nice massage while you're there.

Why We Haven't Done Anything Worth Blogging About For the Past Two Months

Because it looks like this outside all the time:

I went for a walk today anyway, up the hill to the Flaggenturm. Just to get a good laugh at the view from the top. Here are some pics of the walk to the top:

The view from the top:

At least it was really pretty and snowy out. I tried to take fun artsy pictures of the tree branches:

I would kill for some sunshine!

Trifels Castle Fail

So yesterday we found several castles to visit in the area, mapped routes to all of them, then chose the one that looked the most interesting (called Trifels castle). We scouted out its opening hours and tour times and then this morning set out. When we got there we started up the trail from the parking lot to the castle and there was a sign on it that said the castle was closed due to ice and snow. I'm not sure why tour books and websites say the castle is open in the winter if it closes every time there's one inch of snow! And that's all there was on the ground - one inch of snow.

We decided to walk up the trail anyway, since we had driven 40 minutes to get there. Here's Martin looking up towards the castle:

In the castle staff's defense, the trail was quite icy. But not a problem at all for people in hiking boots or children, especially the children getting pulled along it on sleds. Here are some views of the castle from the trail:

Reading yet another sign saying it's closed:

I think this would have a really great view ... in the summer.

Enjoying our time outside of the castle walls. We'll try again in the summer!

Christmas Markets 2012: Heidelberg

Yesterday we went to explore the Christmas market in Heidelberg. While we bought a lot more things in Heidelberg than we did in Deidesheim I was a little disappointed in the Heidelberg market. I thought it would be bigger and have more stalls with things to buy. It was very spread out over about 3 miles (Heidelberg is a big place and has an enormous shopping/pedestrian zone) with a few booths here and there and most of the booths were selling food instead of crafts. I'm sure they spread out the market on purpose so you have to walk by all the stores in Heidelberg and be tempted to shop at them.

Coming into the main square in Heidelberg, there's a big Christmas pyramid all lit up and selling Glühwein:

A shot of the top of it:

And the Glühwein mugs they sold there had hearts for handles! My favorite mugs so far:

I thought this booth was cute:

Chocolate tools!

Little cars, cell phones, clothespins, wrenches, all made out of chocolate! No we didn't buy any but we should have:

We bought one of these stars (in orange of course) to hang in our window:

We also bought one of these little handmade houses/churches with tealights in them. I wanted to buy 2 but the smallest ones are almost 30 euros!!

Maybe next year we'll add a house to our little church:

One of the meat stands. Martin got one of the long sausages in the big sausage pile in this picture. I assume it was good he ate it so fast I didn't even get a bite:

Christmas Markets 2012: Deidesheim

We decided to explore the Christmas markets in the Pfalz this year instead of traveling to a larger city in Germany to see a more well-known market. It will be good to know what's to offer here in our region in case people want to come visit us next December!

Our first market was Deidesheim which is about 9 minutes south of Bad Dürkheim by train. The market had a lot to offer - the usual Glühwein and bratwurst of course but also many ornaments, leather and wooden crafts, glassware and even some potpourri.

First things first, after enjoying the pretty sunset we grabbed some Glühwein:

Our little Glühwein mugs, with Martin taking a picture of them to send to some friends:

Then of course we had to find some sausage!

Okay so maybe the main reason we go to Christmas markets is for the food and drink but the booths were all very atmospheric and cozy too! This one had tons of ornaments hanging from the ceiling:

Here's the required heart-shaped-cookie booth:

And a few pictures of the market as a whole:

And a final mug of Glühwein while standing next to some neat burning logs for warmth:

There was also a nice brass quartet playing Christmas music but I didn't get a picture of them. Overall not a bad way to spend a few hours on a Saturday evening.