Saturday 17 August - Trier

Where's Bertie? He's in a commercial Stellplatz alongside the Mosel in Trier, at a cost of €1 per hour, max €14 per 24/hrs. Water, electricity and showers are available for extra fees. Exact location: 49.74066, 6.624708.
Weather: Some sunny intervals, but coming in increasingly cloudy with the odd minute or two of light rain later on. 25 degrees and very humid.

A parkrun started my day, but we didn't, per our usual behaviour abroad, stay around for coffee and biscuits afterwards. Having observed over the years that 10am is a good time to arrive at motorhome parking areas in popular places at busy times, we minimised our faffing and drove the few minutes to this Stellplatz. We arrived to find we had a huge choice of available spaces, but didn't explore them, instead chucking Bertie into one of the first we saw.

Pausing only long enough for me to wash and change, we were off to walk into Trier before the forecast rain came (which it never really did). The reason we'd moved location was my belief that this Stellplatz was significantly nearer to the city centre. I should have paid more attention, as it turns out the difference is only 600m compared to where we spent last night*. So, what €14 bought us was a nicer (riverside) walk into the city - and a more level pitch on which we could, if we chose, deploy some levelling ramps.

We didn't make it the whole way to the city centre in one go, as we succumbed to the second bakery we came to:

The cakes were pretty tricky to eat without forks, but 1) we couldn't find any; 2) I don't know, off the top of my head, the German word for 'fork'; and 3) I didn't want to have to queue to ask for a fork; so, we managed without.

For two people who are generally bad at visiting cities, I feel like we did a good job of Trier, managing to fill 4 hours, and fitting in most of the key sights (some of which hold UNESCO World Heritage status) of what is said to be the oldest city in Germany.

Looking across the Hauptmarkt to the Red House, a(n) historic building of particular note, constructed in the 15th century ... except it turns out it was destroyed in the second world war and was reconstructed in the 1960/70s.

Looking at the front of the cathedral, I questioned why it had UNESCO World Heritage status as, to me (in my ignorance, no doubt), it didn't look that remarkable a building. Then we went inside, and viewed more of the building from the cloisters and I changed my mind:

Didn't take a photo of the front, but here's a small slice of it on the approach

Okay, that's impressive

and that

a mighty organ

Christ's seamless robe. Or, a poor view through a door/gate to a reinforced display case, in which there is allegedly a chest (that I couldn't make out) in which there is allegedly the said artefact.

From the cloister, looking at the cathedral.

And the church next door, which is more 'link detached' than a separate building.

This ancient cathedral, dating back to 340, looks to have been incredibly well maintained, but the reality is that it incurred significant war damage too and was reconstructed between 1960 and 1974. The leaflet I bought rather glosses over this, referring just to 'extensive restoration', but this photo we found in the cloister tells more of the story

After the cathedral we stumbled upon a basilica of which I failed to take a photo, next to which was a rather grand palace...

...with manicured gardens and water features.

Back via the cathedral and Hauptmarkt, a walk along the high street (lined with characterful typically German buildings), we arrived at the Porta Nigra, another World Heritage Site and, as far as we could tell, this one hasn't been damaged and rebuilt:

It didn't feel as busy as this photo makes it look

We also managed to fit in a walk past the Karl Marx statue and Karl Marx's House (museum), in between which this happened:

and this:

Admittedly the ice creams weren't entirely reasonable, considering the cakes we'd already had, and the size of lunch, but we didn't let that stop us.

Finally, back to Bertie for the Hundred Eliminator matches.

Four contenders for Fountain of the Day today

(*We didn't spend last night where I said in yesterday's post, opting instead to move to the parking area immediately opposite the swimming pool, in the hope that it would be more level. What we actually achieved was a sideways slope rather than a backwards one. A backwards slope is more comfortable, but by the time we finally got into the slot we wanted to use**, we didn't feel inclined to move again.
**Is it acceptable to footnote a footnote? I'm going to anyway: A chap on a bike and a woman in a car had been chatting for about 45 minutes when we moved (a premature move; we thought they were on the cusp of leaving). We then felt rather voyeuristic as we watched them in Bertie's rearview camera. We came to the conclusion, by the time he finally cycled off and she got in her car, that we were witnessing an affair in progress, and not for the first time in a car park in Germany.)