On this day, we left the cosy town of Cochem and slowly started retracing our steps back to London. Figuratively, that is: we were taking trains, not walking!
And so we again witnessed the terraces on the slopes of the Mosel, and went through the tunnels, and crossed its bridges one more time. I’ll spare you the images and videos—you have more in the earlier posts 😏
Arriving in Trier, a former Roman city and the oldest town in Germany, we felt like stepping back into that hustle and bustle sphere we had left behind in Luxembourg. Suddenly, there was people everywhere, of all ages —not just retired people and young families, and not everyone was on holiday!
Strange sensation!
It was still too early for checking in, so we dropped the bags with our precious and heavy cargo (all the wine we had bought in the winery visits of the last days) in the hotel and went off to see Roman ruins and whatever else Trier felt like sharing with us.
The center genuinely felt like a beehive. I think all the kids that weren’t holidaying in Cochem with their parents were in Trier on a schooltrip. So many of them! Running in all directions! Screaming things at each other!
We were particularly surprised that kids were “let free” inside the Porta Nigra, one of the old gates to the city. The windows aren’t particularly made safe, the floors are quite uneven, being as they are made of big old stones, and there you had all these kids running and dashing around… it was a bit unnerving.
After climbing the towers and peeking at the city from different angles, we went downstairs and left, ignoring the tempting, but very busy looking Museum, and found somewhere to eat lunch near the Marktplatz. I don’t even remember the name! It provided us with food, and not least importantly, it was quiet, so we could recharge a bit.
From there we dragged ourselves to the Roman baths, which was hard work, because the sun was shining with fury and it was getting so excruciatingly hot. If it hadn’t been because of the pull of the ruins, I think I would have refused the idea of going anywhere outright!
Thankfully, we could cool down a bit when going underground and into the old service tunnels. They were really nice when it’s so hot outside, but I bet the damp makes them not-so-welcoming in winter…
All the time we were there, I could not stop thinking of much these ruins reminded me of Piranesi’s ruins drawings. I don’t think he ever made an engraving of Trier, but it would not have looked dissimilar to what we saw.
Once that visit was finished, we were exhausted! If it hadn’t been because we were walking, I reckon I would have fallen asleep, like in Moselkern’s station.
Fortunately, our hotel room was ready by then, which meant that we could do two very nice things:
- have a nap
- have a shower
Never discount the restorative power of either, and the multiplying effects of having BOTH!
And then, refreshed and recharged, we went out to explore a bit more of Trier as there was plenty of time until our PRE-BOOKED dinner.
“Prebooked?”, I hear you say with a mix of scorn and skepticism. Well, yes, I’m pleased to say: the first thing that Devvers did after the 80s pizza episode was to go to OpenTable and see if there would be any sufficiently advanced restaurant in Trier that had embraced the joys of an online booking system so we didn’t need to talk on the phone.
And so that way we could just roam the streets in the afternoon, knowing exactly where we would go for dinner, i.e., the first restaurant that looked decent and had availability in OpenTable. Yes! Those are thus our standards nowadays: a shade of their former past.
As it’s only proper for an afternoon passeggiata through Trier’s old town, we enjoyed having some gelato, and I even accidentally found a flavour that tasted like the Spanish trufa, which is my all-time favourite, so I was very pleased!
It generally felt quite safe around the Marktplatz area, but once we walked a bit more towards Kornmarkt we started seeing weird people doing suspicious things, like bumping into people for inexplicable reasons. We didn’t like that at all, so we got away from the area to avoid these opportunistic pickpockets.
Schlemmereule
Finally, it was time to utter those eight words for the first time in a few days:
“Hello! We have a reservation for two people”.
How weird and wonderful it felt! We did not have to plead or be made to wait while they considered if it would ruin the night to have two more guests—we just were guided to a nice quiet courtyard and asked to choose a table. So wonderfully calm and predictable!
We ordered some sparkling (Sekt, obviously) to celebrate our return to “normal”.
Then settled and enjoyed the very nice bread and butter:
A fig and cheese appetiser materialised shortly thereafter:
After having been eating essentially variations on the same meat and potatoes concept for the last few days, this felt literally and metaphorically refreshing! Vegetables other than potatoes! Salad leaves that weren’t soggy or drenched in a sweetened balsamic vinegar reduction! Crunch! Variety! 🤪🤩🤯
That said, burrata on gazpacho was… a strange fusion I hadn’t seen or expect to see ever in my life. But: I take it!
The flavours were well achieved, although I’m not sure that I’d concoct this combination myself at home. I’d keep them separate 😅
The fish and noodles (spaghetti with ink) were really nice too:
The waiter recommended us this Kabinett that was super nice. It was a good farewell! Auf wiedersehen Kabi!
The service was very attentive and it was all flowing at a very nice pace, while we amusedly observed the locals in their environment: there seemed to be a lot of powerful looking people having dinner, and the perhaps not so powerful which were walking to the other tables to sort of “pay respect”… definitely there was an interesting lot of social dynamics in place and we were witnesses to it. Little did we know when booking the restaurant!
But then for some strange reason, our orders got somehow lost in the kitchen and our desserts took a long time to materialise… and it got daaaaark! 🌃
But, you know, sometimes those things happen. The waiter was mortified! We tried to reassure him that it was fine, it had been solved, it really was fine, and he was still apologising!
Schlemmereule
Domfreihof 1b
54290 Trier
The good thing about the accidentally protracted dinner was that we got to take night pictures of the Dom…
… and we were quite astonished to see night life, well past 22h…
Look at all this people being outdoors at night!
