Day 16

How’s the weather out in California? Well in Trier and Cochem, it’s rainy and cold. We made the final climb out of Luxembourg today, and trust me, it was a hike. We arrived in Trier on schedule but the rain from Luxembourg seemed to follow us into Germany. Our first stop was St. Peter’s Cathedral which is the oldest church in all of Germany. They must have done some renovations because it actually looked pretty nice. We walked into the city and saw the haupmarkt and all of its surroundings. And our next stop was the Porta Nigra which is just a really really big black looking gate. Trier is the oldest city in Germany and used to be a Roman city back in the day. So of course we had to go see the Roman ruins throughout the city. We stopped by the amphitheater which apparently they built wherever they went. It was really cool and I could almost see them having their gladiator fights with lions and tigers. We even got to go underneath the amphitheater and see the underground network. I assumed that this was the lion pit. Our next set of ruins was the Imperial baths. Romans were pretty smart and they would build these baths and either use natural heat to warm up the water or have one of their workers heat it up. Well, there wasn’t much left of the ruins but I guess you could kind of picture it. Again, we went underneath and saw all of the rooms and hidden chambers. I believe this was the area that the workers heated the baths. Once we came back out I could picture it better in my mind and saw where the baths used to stand. Some still had the stairs that led into the baths. After leaving the Imperial baths we made it to the Forum baths. It was pretty much the same thing except I think that the forum baths included other buildings besides baths. We walked along in the rain until we came to the Karl Marx house. Karl Marx, famous German theorist, was born and raised in Trier. Because I had recently taken a class that discussed Marx, I couldn’t miss seeing his home. We didn’t get to go inside because our train was due to arrive soon. We left our first city very excited, but still hoping for better weather. After arriving in Cochem we proceeded to walk 1.5 miles to our hotel…in the rain. It was miserable. And once we made it there, I didn’t want to leave for the rest of the night, even though it was only 1pm. After washing some of my clothes in the sink, we headed out to see the city and the castle. The climb wasn’t too bad and we were able to get a guided tour and go through all of the rooms. It was a really nice castle and currently is owned by the city. So maybe someday… Anyways, the castle also provided some great views of the city, even with the cruddy weather. We walked back down into the main square and stopped for a rest. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a sign that said 2 waffles and a cup of coffee for 5 euros. How could we pass that up? So we got our two waffles covered in sugar, ice cream, and whipped cream and drank our coffee during our break. We walked over to the bridge and had a nice view of the city and the Mosel River. But we still had that long walk back to our hotel. We stopped at the grocery store to decide on something for dinner. Luckily the room we were staying in had a nice little kitchen with a stove and everything. And I was sick of eating sandwiches. Our dinner consisted of chicken cooked in mushroom cream sauce and then topped with mushrooms and surrounded by sauteed green onions. It was delicious. And much better than any sandwich I’ve ever had. After our relaxing dinner the sun had set and the rain had stopped. We decided to go out into the city again, which meant more walking. But we did it. We went to our look out spot on the bridge but were disappointed when a good bit of the lights in the city weren’t on. At least we got to see it. There’s not internet here, so I’ll have to wait to post this until tomorrow!