This handsome, leafy Moselle town is home to Germany's finest ensemble of Roman monuments – including thermal baths and an amphitheatre – as well as architectural gems from later ages.
Porta NigraGATE
This brooding 2nd-century city gate – blackened by time (hence the name, Latin for ‘black gate’) – is a marvel of engineering since it’s held together by nothing but gravity and iron clamps.
AmphitheaterROMAN SITE
Trier’s Roman amphitheatre could accommodate 20,000 spectators for gladiator tournaments and animal fights. Beneath the arena are dungeons where prisoners sentenced to death waited next to starving beasts for the final showdown.
KaiserthermenROMAN SITE
Get a sense of the layout of this vast Roman thermal bathing complex with its striped brick-and-stone arches from the corner lookout tower, then descend into an underground labyrinth consisting of hot- and cold-water baths, boiler rooms and heating channels.
Trierer DomCATHEDRAL
Trier's cathedral is considered the oldest bishop's church in Germany and looms above a palace built during Roman times. Today's edifice is a study in nearly 1700 years of church architecture, with Romanesque, Gothic and baroque elements. Intriguingly, its floorplan is that of a 12-petalled flower, a symbol of the Virgin Mary.
Konstantin BasilikaCHURCH
Constructed around AD 310 as Constantine’s throne room, the brick-built basilica is now a typically austere Protestant church. With built-to-impress dimensions (67m long and 36m high), it's the largest single-room Roman structure still in existence.
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