Fabian's day game plan set us up for a sample of medieval and earlier history and architecture with our local Trier guide...A historical fact, following the Pope's proclamation to retake Jerusalem from the Muslim's, Trier became one of the first battle sights for the Crusades. The crusaders were a real cross section from the lowest to the highest members of the population, many of whom were suffering from a year of hardships and crop failures...In Trier it was the Jewish population which was pummeled by the Crusaders...Convert, run for it. or be slayed...no one was spared...
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Judith our local Trier guide headed us past the huge twentieth century influence, Karl Marx's birth place house,...We entered old town and she used Roman bookends to begin and conclude our old town tour...we began several feet below today's ground level with the ruins of the Roman Imperial Baths built by Constantine in the 300's A.D. The community that was founded in 16 B.C. by Emperor Augustus, and later became Trier was the Capital of the Western Roman empire in the late 200's A.D... The end of our tour was the other Roman bookend of the huge Porta Nigra an entry port in the ancient Roman town wall...it was saved from scavengers by becoming ST. Simeon's Church...Between the Roman bookends tour was the medieval Dom (Cathedral, the oldest in Germany, 312 A.D.) that began life as began a life as the throne room until 395 A.D...
Belstein--lunch--castle views of the Mosel
Burg Eltz...Continuously owned by the same family for over five hundred years...It was most impressive to see and touch the types of European structure that so influenced a much earlier European visitor...He was a US World War one soldier named Walt Disney...Impressive sight looking down on the castle during our approach and looking up at the the towering massive castle views during our downhill departure hike...A local guide provided the colorful description of the castle...No photos please...