T - Trier, Germany

We are in the home stretch.  This is the first of seven remaining posts.

Trier lies in the Moselle wine region along the banks of the Moselle River and is the oldest city in Germany.  Founded by the Romans, it contains several well-preserved Roman structures like the Porta Nigra gate, the ruins of Roman baths, an amphitheater just outside the center and a stone bridge over the Moselle River.  Among Trier’s many Catholic churches is Trier Cathedral of St. Peter.  The UNESCO information can be read here.

Interior of Constantine I's throne room above, the largest single standing structure from the 4th Century.   

The amphitheater, above and below ground, dating to the 2nd Century.

The Porta Nigra gates, 180 A. D. look to be in pretty good shape, all things considered.  

Trier is full of UNESCO World Heritage sites.  You can see them all here.












Cathedral of St. Peter with the entrance seen below

 St. Peter's Fountain

The Hauptmarkt area with homes dating to medieval times.

House of the Three Magi, 1230

Roman Bridge over the Moselle

The palace with the Basilica behind it.  Date: 1615

Part of the Imperial Baths

There is really a lot to see in Trier and you can easily spend more than one day here.  We ended our stay with dinner up on a hill and I will leave you with this view.  The photo is not great but you can see the old ruins in the center.

What is the oldest ruin you have ever visited?

Bonus:  Hosta 'Tokudama'

An A to Z Challenge Reveal - 2017 Edition

My Benelux Adventure

Last year I traveled to Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.  The political-economic union of the three countries is referred to as Benelux.  I also made a quick day trip into Germany to see Germany's oldest city.  This is the theme for my blog during the month of April and the A to Z Challenge.

This trip was in the planning for many years.  I originally wanted to travel to Amsterdam in 2004, but the Rijksmuseum was being renovated, a renovation that started in 2003 and continued to 2013.  In the meantime, I saw the movie 'In Bruges' in 2009 and my desire to see the region was even more intense. But wait, they were still renovating the museum.  So, other places were visited and I have blogged about those trips - Canada, Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Russia, Finland, Estonia... did I forget anyplace?

Anyway, the museum was reopened and the time was right.  Off I went.  It was a wonderful two-week adventure.  And I could have used more time, but admit that I was ready to come home.  I will share all the wonderful sites with you - well, all the A to Z sites.

If you have a Twitter account, you can follow me @msdeniseh553.  These posts appear on Twitter as soon as they are posted here.  You can also sign up for emails in the box on the right.  I will try to link on the A to Z Challenge website each day, but since my posts are pre-scheduled, that may not always happen.  Whatever you decide, I hope you will travel with me in April.

Have you visited any of these countries.  What was the highlight of your trip?

Check out the other bloggers here.

Wordless Wednesday - In Season

Travelling Tuesday to Hameln,Germany

Well, as I promised, I will be telling about more of my travels and have decided to write about them in a new feature called 'Travelling Tuesday'.  Since I am sure we are all Russia'd out for the moment, I am going to visit a town I did not mention last year on my German A to Z tour, Hameln, or Hamelin to us Americans.

I am sure that many of you have read or heard the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.  A rat catcher is hired to rid a town of its rats and when the town folk refuse to pay he leads all of their children away.  So, a stop in this fairy tale town was interesting, if not a city on my bucket list.

It was quite lovely.  Emerging from the underground passage to visit the park we saw this lovely building.  I've no idea what it is, but I liked the architecture.  I did a Google image search and discovered that I must be the only person who ever took a picture of it, lol.

The entrance to the park boasted an interesting arch showing the Pied Piper leading the children out of the town.

The architecture in the walk-able 'downtown' was very baroque and quite lovely.  Here is the Leisthaus:

And of course, the Rat Catcher's house, which appears now to be a restaurant.  Don't ask.

There were several nice shops and it was great people watching with cafe tables lined along the pedestrian friendly street.

I am not sure I have enough to do this every Tuesday, but maybe the first one of each month, at least?

The Fall of the Berlin Wall Remembered

So much in the news today about the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago.  The televised images are still burned into my mind.

In case you missed it last April, here is a link to my blog about Berlin.  I was in the city for the Re-unification Day celebrations.  Just like the 4th of July at home.

May we never see another one of these constructed anywhere, including on OUR borders!!!

Y, Y, Y, Y???

The question asked again and again at the Nuremberg trials.  Why?

The partition of Germany after the war with fences and guard towers as seen in Modlareuth.  Why?

The ongoing conflict in the world.  WHY???

NOTE:  Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day.  You can find more information here.

I have had an interest in Germany and German history ever since high school.  My world history teacher (1962-63) was German and, when it came to history, she spent a lot of time discussing Germany in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.  Since then I've had an interest in understanding how three first cousins could go to war (WWI) against each other:  Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of Great Britain, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. And then have their successors repeat the war just 25 years later.

World War I had no winner.  It ended out of sheer exhaustion of the participating countries.  Germany put Lenin on a train and sent him into Russia to put the latter's focus on the home front situation.  I previously reviewed the book  "To End All Wars" which deals with the war, mostly from a British perspective.

On a previous trip to Europe I viewed the palaces of the Hapsburg Dynasty that ended with the first World War.  When I planned this trip, I was particularly focused on seeing those areas of the country so pivotal in World War II - Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Nuremberg, Dachau, Potsdam, Dresden...  Many of these I have already mentioned in this challenge.

The guides I had were all well-versed in German history.  Every time I turned on a TV in Germany there was some station showing a program about the World Wars (in German so I had no idea what they were saying, but the topic was clear).  The motto everywhere seemed to be 'Never Forget'.

I heard the question asked again and again about "Y" did people listen to Hitler?  But think about it.  We hear what we want to hear from whomever is delivering the message.  If a country is struggling, they look to blame someone for their problems.  Hitler gave them peoples to blame.  They look to a leader, any leader who will tell them what they want to hear.

It seems rather inconceivable that they would follow so willingly.  But ask yourself this:  Do I follow willingly what my political party leaders, religious leaders, social contacts, or even my boss says without any independent thinking?  How many people watch TV and follow whatever Dr. Oz has to say without verifying his sources of information???  (this is a pet peeve of mine, sorry folks)

On this trip I marveled at the German people's ability to rebuild their country after the war, even though it took many, many years.  (And no, I have no German blood lines on either side of my family.  As a matter of fact, my mother's family had their farm in northern Italy taken from them by the Germans in World War I.)  The Germans have an intense enthusiasm and national pride.  I was in Berlin during the Reunification Day ceremonies and the city was packed.  It was like America on the 4th of July.

In the following pictures I will cover some of the areas dealing with the war.  I'll let the photos do my talking for me.

In Berlin we visited the Bendler Block courtyard to see the outdoor memorial to the German Resistance:

The plaque with the names of the men who lost their lives after a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler.

The story was made into several movies, most recently 'Valkyrie'.
























There are many memorials to those who died in concentration camps including this Holocaust Memorial in Berlin:

And this sculpture in Frankfurt:

One could spend an entire day at the Topography of Terror Museum.  There are both indoor and outdoor exhibits.  This is part of the wall outside:

While I may do a future post about the City of Nuremberg, for now the place to see there is the Documentation Center on the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds.

This is what is left of the outdoor area:

The exhibits here and at the Topography of Terror are well worth the time it will take to adequately understand what was happening if you were not living at the time or have not studied this era in history.  Nuremberg is also the home to the Palace of Justice where the Nuremberg Trial verdicts were handed down:

And if what had happened in World War II wasn't enough, the Russians put barriers up around East Germany and in the case of Modlareuth, split the town right in half, separating families for 24 years (1966 - 1990).  Imagine seeing this in your backyard:

Truly war has no winners, only survivors.

On my Bucket List:  Yangtze River cruise

X is for eXtermination

Day 18 of the trip.  The morning was spent at the Eagle's Nest high in the Alps, and then the afternoon was spent in Dachau.


Dachau was the first of Hitler's concentration camps, opening soon after he became the Reich Chancellor.  If he didn't like you, he had a solution and this was it.  Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, Sinti, Romas, political opponents, were the first to be targeted before the war even broke out in 1939.  It only got worse from there.


Call it extermination, ethnic cleansing, purification of blood lines, it has happened over and over again in the history of man.  Every powerful country on Earth has inflicted horrors on a population they deemed unworthy.  Americans have only to look at the treatment of native American Indians before casting aspersions on other countries.  There is a lot of blame to pass around.

World War II and the Nazi Party took it to a whole new level of being an unimaginable atrocity.

 Translation: "Work Makes You Free" - Arbeit Macht Frei

Below is the area where the barracks for prisoners stood.

The crematoriums:

A restored barrack:

Update:  I did not realize at the time I was posting this that today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On my Bucket List:  Xian, China