Germany's oldest city

It was near dusk when I took this shot of a portion of the city of Trier from atop the Porta Nigra, the Black Gate. The Porta Nigra was the oldest structure I had ever seen. (Don Dale photo, 1967) Click here for a picture of the Porta Nigra itself.

When I looked up my European destination back at the Gunter AFB library, I found little more than the bare essentials -- a map with a dot marked "Bitburg" and a few facts, such as the population (about 8,000) and its location near the borders of Luxembourg, Belgium and France.

If I'd looked about 30 miles south of Bitburg, I'd have seen Trier. (It's pronounced as one syllable, "Treer"). On the other hand, the name wouldn't have meant anything to me at the time.

But once I bought my Beetle, I began to explore the countryside. A fellow medic who had been in Germany longer than I had told me that the oldest city in Germany was about a half-hour away. Trier became one of my favorite destinations.

Nestled alongside the Mosel River, where some of the finest German wines are produced as they have been for centuries, Trier traces its history from pre-Christian times. It was founded 16 years before the birth of Christ and is the oldest seat of a Christian bishop north of the Alps.

The Romans played a big part in Trier's story from the beginning, and the city claimed it was the northernmost outpost of the empire. Remnants visible today include an amphitheater complete with underground rooms for athletes and animals and a large, stone city gate known as the Porta Nigra (or Black Gate). You can still see the ruins of three Roman baths and the basilica, originally a 220-foot-long throne hall for the Roman Emperor Constantine. (Now it's a Protestant church.)

The first church on the site of Trier's cathedral was built by the Romans, and it is home to what some believe is the Holy Tunic, the robe Jesus was wearing when he died. To get into the city from the direction of Bitburg, one can still drive across the Roman Bridge, built in the 2nd century.

The Romans abandoned the city in 395. In 459, the Franks took control. In 870 it became part of what developed into the Holy Roman Empire. In the 1600s and 1700s, Trier was repeatedly invaded by France, which finally took control in 1794. Twenty years later, after the Napoleonic Wars, control passed to the Kingdom of Prussia. Karl Marx was born in Trier in 1818. The city became part of the German Empire in 1871. During World War II, it was heavily bombed by the Allies.

Twenty-two years after the war, I crossed the Roman Bridge for the first time.

With six or seven times the population of Bitburg, Trier was a sightseers delight. On many a weekend, I'd grab a friend and head for the city. We could get by with English near the base, but in Trier, my new skills in German were necessary. I made a lot of mistakes, but the secret seemed to be just giving it a shot. I'm sure I must have sounded like an idiot, but when I used my pitiful German, people tried to help, smiled a lot, and were encouraging. The more I used it, the more my German improved.

I remember the first time I climbed to the top of the Porta Nigra, which stood four stories tall, and realized that I was walking on stone that had been laid 1,700 years before. I was standing in a place that had existed 1,200 years before Columbus set sail. I was quite literally filled with awe.

In 1967, anybody could climb the Porta Nigra, walk through the amphitheater and stroll through the ruins of the baths at any time of the day or night. Today they're all tourist attractions, and you have to pay to gain access. Tour guides are available, and hours are restricted. There's even a tourist center at the Porta Nigra. None of that had been developed when I was first there. We could tour what we wanted to, whenever we wanted to, but we were on our own.

Unlike Bitburg, which had rebuilt its post-war economy around the base, Trier had not been "Americanized" in the least. But the bars, the restaurants and the shopping were much more sophisticated. One of my early visits was to the Kaufhof, a large department store, where I purchased perfume (Jalique) to send home to my sister and after-shave (Tabac) for me. (I still wear Tabac. I used to have to stock up on return trips to Germany, but now I can order it online.)

Today, Trier has completely capitalized on its value as a tourist attraction, in the process losing some of its authenticity to my way of thinking. Traffic has been banned in the center city, which is a good thing. But kitsch, alas, is plentiful, and in the summertime, tourists crowd the streets. Nevertheless, it's still a great city to visit.

My first visit to a beer-hall was in Trier. I'm talking about a huge, crowded basement room, with plank tables, a raucous oom-pah band, waitresses in dirndls and waiters in lederhosen -- all wearing Bavarian-style green felt hats with feathers in them. The crowd was tipsy and happy, singing along loudly and enthusiastically with the band. We ordered "what they're having," pointing to the plates of the people seated next to us. We ate sauerkraut, boiled potatoes, roasted chicken, pommes frites with honey, and meaty joints of ham -- and beer, stein after stein of Pilsner on draft.

As we made our way back to my VW, I remember thinking, "Now I've seen the real Germany." I hadn't seen much of it yet, of course. But I had three more years to explore and enjoy before I came back home to Richmond.