Trier and the Moselle River Valley

Trier in Germany is a city I hadn’t visited before this trip.  It is probably the oldest city in Germany... at least the oldest city that can verify its history as an urban center since 17 B.C.E.  Archaeological projects have uncovered artifacts from two thousand years before the Roman period indicating there had been villages along the Mosel around what later became the urban center of Trier.  What we do know for sure is that Julius Caesar’s expansion of the Roman Empire included the area on the Mosel around and north and west of Trier.  The ruins of Trier’s amphitheater, the Roman baths, a Roman bridge across the Mosel, a Roman circus and the Porta Nigra indicate a city that rivaled Rome in size and worldly sophistication. The present-day cities of Paris and London were no more than villages during this early period when Trier was an impressive Roman metropolis.  At one time it was probably the fourth or fifth largest city in the Roman Empire. Constantine the Great in the early part of the Fourth Century ruled from his throne in the Trier Palastaula which is known today as the Constantine Basilica. This incredible building is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

Besides the visit to Trier today I managed to get in a good bicycle ride. I rode along the river for a few miles to a little village of Konz on the German side of the river with Luxembourg on the other side before heading into the countryside on a farm road.  I found some delicious big blackberries and wondered why somebody hadn’t picked them already and turned them into jam or jelly. 

As I was riding this afternoon I thought about the hundreds of generations of people who look a lot like me who lived in this river valley.  I thought about Constantine and his mother Helen...  and about the gladiators who entertained the people of Trier almost two thousand years ago by battling animals and each other to the death in the amphitheater.  I thought about how the world has changed dramatically since Trier was founded... and about how in some ways it hasn’t changed at all.