Germany: Trier, August 12-14

Back to Germany, to the city of Trier or Treveri as it was called in Roman times. Trier is the oldest city in Germany, founded by the Romans in 16 B.C. For 300 years it was the capital of the Northern Roman province of Gallia Belgica. Today, the Roman influence is still strong in the city. The Porta Nigra, the Roman Baths, the Basilika, and the Amphitheater all testify to Treveri -- Trier's impressive Roman past.

This is the Porta Nigra (the Black Gate).

The rest of the city is just as pretty, as all small cities in Germany seem to be. The houses are beautifully restored and the pedestrian mall (Fussgängerzone) is full of shops, restaurants, and cafes. This is the market square, and we lived just around the corner in a youth hostel.

In the background, connected to the Palace, you can see the Basilika, which was built by Emperor Constantine (more on him below) as his grand hall to receive guests, citizens, and dignitaries.

This is the courtyard of the Cathedral of Trier, which also was begun around 300.

When we arrived in Trier, we found out that the city was celebrating the Emperor Constantine -- the first Christian Roman emperor -- who moved his residence to Trier in 306 (and thus made Trier the seat of the Western Roman Empire) and became the ''Augustus'' of Trier in 307. If you want to know more, visit http://www.konstantin-ausstellung/.

It turned out that this weekend was Roman weekend, with a Roman camp built up at the area where the ruins of the Roman baths now are. It was something like a miniature "Renaissance Festival" like they have in Maryland each fall. Same ideas of foods, crafts, bow-and-arrow contests, even jousting.

Thomas was confident of his archery skills after having done this in P.E. at school the past year. Sure enough, he put all three arrows in the deer.

One field was set up to show Roman jousting.

Eating genuine Roman stew in bread bowl (hmm... looks strangely like the bread bowl you get at the Maryland Renaissance Festival).

In the evning there was a light, dance, and sound spectacular in the underground walkways of the ancient Roman baths. This place would be great for a Halloween Spooktacular, which is what it reminded us of.

A visit to Trier would not be complete without a visit to the Karl Marx museum. Karl Marx was born in this house in Trier in 1818. The museum has a brand new exhibit about the life and influence of Karl Marx, and it also describes the turbulent history of the house itself.
To know more about Karl Marx and the museum, go to http://www.fes.de/marx/index_e.htm

Now we actually have left Trier and are on our way to Frankfurt am Main. We will stay in a hotel right by the airport in order to be ready to fly back the next morning. We took the scenic route, with a ferry over the Rhine river from Ingelheim to Oestrich-Winkel. Here you can see how flooded the river is. They were preparing for a new flooding catastrophe like back in 2005, but fortunately the water level was receding. Thomas has no time looking at such things. He is reading his latest James Bond book, "Dr. No"......

Our last dinner in Germany for this time was at this winery above the Rhine river. The view over the river valley where you can see Frankfurt, Mainz, and Wiesbaden was excellent, as was the wine and the food.

Luxemburg: A Brief Stop on the Way Back to Germany, August 12

We left Verdun early Sunday morning and within a couple of hours we were in Luxemburg. The best thing about this little country was the price of gas! In Germany, you pay almost $8 a gallon.... In Luxemburg you get gas for the bargain price of $6 a gallon. Needless to say, they had the biggest gas stations we have ever seen right at the border crossings. People come from the surrounding areas in Germany and France just to fill up their cars and to buy coffee, which also was supposed to be a lot cheaper. We filled up, too.

The city itself was very pretty, with a big fort in the middle where the city center was.



On the town square this band of young college-age kids from Lyon, France, was playing. They were very good.



Here we are in front of the palace in which their Grand Duke Henri lives with his Grand Duchess Maria Teresa and their five children. Unfortunately they did not have time to meet us at such a short notice.



We hiked down to the bottom of the ravine that surrounds the fort before driving back to Germany.

France: Verdun, August 10-11

War, what is it good for?

Even as we talked about this Europe trip before leaving the States, Thomas had asked us again and again if we couldn't drive around Europe and visit as many countries as possible. This was not exactly what we wanted to do, but France and Luxemburg would be an option. Since Thomas's big project for 7th grade is an interdisciplinary project on World War I, what would be more appropriate than visiting Verdun, France. His summer reading assignment was Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, which he finished while we were in Simmern. We had also watched the old black-and-white movie in Germany.

It was rather amazing to start in the morning in Brauneberg, Germany, drive through Luxemburg, and end up in Verdun, France, by lunchtime! Three countries in less than three hours. The EU has really changed Europe. The former border crossings were empty buildings, and so we could just ride right through.




The above picture shows downtown Verdun with the Victory Monument in the background. This section of town is a bit deceiving in that it appears that Verdun is a well maintained city with picturesque houses. Unfortunately, that is true for only a very small section of the downtown area. Most houses and streets were very run down. We were commenting that one could make a film about World War I destruction with these houses as the natural background. The pictures below will give you a sense of that.





After spending the first afternoon walking around in the city, we went out to the memorials, museums, monuments, and cemeteries in the area outside of town where the battle of Verdun took place during 1916. It is truly incomprehensible what happened there. The battle went on from February to November, and during that time 800,000 young men were killed -- 400,000 French soldiers and 400,000 German soldiers. (Somewhere around nine million soldiers were killed in WW I.) Most were killed by artillery shelling -- from the shrapnel or just buried alive in their trenches .

The Battle of Verdun has been called the most meaningless battle of all of the war. The insanity of it all is documented in the museums and especially in the Ossuary of Douaumont, pictured below. The Ossuary contains the bones of 130,000 unknown soldiers, French and German alike. In front of the Ossuary is a National Cemetery where 15, 000 French soldiers are buried.









Here Thomas and Kerstin are looking into the "windows" of the Ossuary, and what did they see?



This! In window after window after window after window after window.......



We also visited some of the trenches. Here is a communication trench, i.e., a trench which was used to send messengers between the different real trenches. It's now all green, with grass and trees. At the time of the battle the entire landscape was completely denuded of all life -- like the moon. The craters remain, but the vegetation has grown in to make it very beautiful.

It must be with very mixed emotions that the people of Verdun deal with what happened here. On the one hand, the city has been named the World Capital of Peace. This would mean that the insanity of the whole war, the meaninglessness of all the death and destruction, would be at the center. This message indeed is conveyed in many places. At the same time, though, there is ample information to show French heroism and the French victory, urging a false sense of French nationalism and patriotism. In addition, tourism to these grisly places is what the city seems to live from. There were a lot of German tourists here.

The Argonne Battlefields are not far from Verdun. This is where most of the American soldiers fought. In this area there is an American Memorial and the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. With 14,246 crosses, this is the biggest American cemetery in Europe. We decided to drive over there. It was a pretty drive through the French country side, and the cemetery itself was beautiful -- if a cemetery can be beautiful.

As we were standing there, looking at the names of all the young men who had died here, Kerstin said, "I wonder if there was any Gaddy who died here." "I was wondering the same," Thomas said. "Look at that cross," Cliff said. And right there was the grave of James R. Gaddy.
How was that possible! More that 14,000 crosses and we should be standing right there? Kerstin is convinced that James talked to us from his grave....

We also stopped briefly at a cemetery for German soldiers. Maybe that is where the classmates of Paul (the main character in Remarque's book) and Paul himself ended up.

Verdun was one of France's most fortified cities before World War I. These forts had been built after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 to stave off another German attack. Today, remnants of these forts can be seen in many places. And they can be used for something good, in this case soccer! This little field was the best for Thomas. It was like indoor soccer, because the ball would always bounce back!

Even though Verdun is laden with a sad history and with sad memories, we were glad to find out that the city also can be "normal." We did not experience that until the end of our trip when we were having dinner on the quay of the Meuse river in the city center. Suddenly, all the outdoor cafes and restaurants were full, and people were walking up and down, talking, laughing and having fun. An outdoor concert was about to start. Winston McAnuff was the big attraction, and he performed a blend of Jamaican reggae and French chansons. We all really enjoyed the concert and the atmosphere. We bought the CD, which we listened to all the way to Luxemburg.

Germany: And On to the Mosel, August 7-9

It is hard to believe, but the Mosel river is even prettier than the Rhine river. On both sides of the river there are fantastic bike trails that are full of bikers. Most of them seem to be out on longer trips, because they have packed saddle bags and are prepared for all kinds of weather. It is very easy to find B&Bs -- just look for signs that say "Zimmer frei." Needless to say, there are innumerable restaurants that serve anything from breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, and, of course, the local wine.

We were recommended to stay in Brauneberg, in a B&B called Haus Liane. Check out their web page to get more pictures http://www.kriebs-mattes.de/. This recommendation was just fantastic. The Haus Liane is owned by a couple who also are wine growers and producers. Hubert is the vintner and Liane is his wife. Both seemed like wonderful people. Liane -- who runs the B&B (in addition to helping out in the vineyards) -- is almost a parody of a jolly farm wife. When we arrived, the first thing she did was pop open a bottle of wine, sit us down, and treat us to a few glasses. Their wine was the best that we tasted anywhere. And the breakfasts that Liane served up each morning were amazing -- enough to keep you going all day long.

In the evening, all the guests (there were two other couples staying there at the time) would sit together out on the back patio with Hubert and taste his wines and talk about the day's adventures or plans for the next day. He also showed us some great videos about the area and the wine growing industry here.

As usual, we found a place nearby where Thomas could practice his soccer skills.

We had planned to use Brauneberg as the base for some bicycle tours along the Mosel, but neither the weather or other circumstances cooperated. There is a bike rental outlet in Brauneberg, but unfortunately they had a "Ruhetag" (day-of-rest -- watch out for this. A lot of restaurants and other places have random "Ruhetage.") on Wednesday afternoons. So our plans to bike to the nearby town of Bernkastel-Kues further down the Mosel did not work out. Instead, we took the car to this little city 7 km away.

If there is any place on the Mosel where it is crowded, it would be Bernkastel-Kues. A lot of tourists were here, mostly from Holland, Belgium and other parts of Germany. We hardly ever saw any Americans during our trip -- anywhere. Needless to say, this place is unreal -- like a German version of a Disney-World version of a German town. Every house is meticulously restored and painted. Everything is clean and unbelievably pretty.

We just walked around the place and enjoyed the touristy sights.

This is Bernkastel from the Kues side. (The town is a combination of two towns, one on each side of the Mosel.) We did take a short cruise on the river from here.

The next day, Hubert the vintner was going to take a group of children from a children's home on a tour of the wine growing districts on the slopes of the Mosel river. This is the tractor and the covered wagon that he uses for this trip. In the wagon there are seats and a table in the middle.

Unfortunately, the weather was not the best. The view from the top of the mountain over the valley was limited by the fog and mist, but it was still quite beautiful, as you can see.

Thomas got to ride up front in the tractor with Hubert for a while, conversing with him in German.

Here is Hubert serving his guests some wine. The children got juice that he also produces.