Trier
The Porta Nigra - the remaining Roman town gate.
The next morning, Monday, we left Bacharach and drove through some gorgeous scenery to Trier, where the tour was to begin on the next day. Since we had reserved a room in the tour hotel for the night, we found the hotel, deposited our bags and drove to return the rental car (thank goodness for GPS!!!).
We had the rest of the day and most of the following day before the tour was to begin which gave us time for a leisurely exploration of the town. We checked out the cathedral (Dom) with its cloister, the church of Our Lady, the interior of the Porta Nigra, the Haupt-Markt square, Korn-Markt square, St. Gangolf's church and much more. We still had time for a couple of lunches, a couple of mid-afternoon snacks, a lovely dinner and a lot of people-watching!
The Cathedral (Dom) on the left and the Church of Our Lady on the right
The interior of the Porta Nigra
The cloister
Market Square
At 4:00 on Tuesday, we met with our group and the tour guide, Iris, for the first time at the hotel. We introduced ourselves, Iris walked us through the expectations for the tour and passed out our "whisper boxes" (so that we could hear her without her having to raise her voice), we picked our buddies and we were off to our first group dinner! We had a great traditional German dinner at Zum Domstein, right on Market Square.
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The next morning, we met our local guide who walked us through town, taking in Constantine's Basilica, the Bishop's Palace and gardens, and back through town to the Cathedral and the Market Square area, loading us up with lots of fascinating historical information.
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Then it was time to meet our bus driver, Joost, and for our first bus ride! Joost was to become an integral part of our little group and we all appreciated his expertise on that bus. For our first ride, he took us to the cute little town of Beilstein for lunch, and then on to Burg Eltz castle.
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Beilstein is a quaint village right on the Mosel river. We had a great lunch at Hotel Haus Lipmann and had time to wander around the town a little before Joost drove us to Burg Eltz for our fascinating tour. It was awe-inspiring to think that the same family had owned this castle for centuries.
Burg Eltz
Our Beilstein restaurant
We were back in Trier for dinner, and to get ready to leave the following morning. That's when our first "oops" happened. I fell while walking down the sidewalk and badly sprained my ankle. Oops! Although it was painful and became quite swollen, turning all kinds of strange colors, it didn't appear that anything was broken. I could still move my toes. It could have been a lot worse.
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Luckily, we didn't have far to walk to make it to the bus and on the road to Baden Baden!