Location: Trier, Germany

We chose to celebrate our 2nd anniversary in beautiful Trier, Germany’s oldest town located on the Mosel River.  It was a big Roman Empire town so there’s tons of history and even Roman ruins throughout the city. Going in to the weekend I wanted romance, lots of fall colors, and wine activities.  Trier did not disappoint on any front!

I studied abroad here ten years ago and had not been back since.  I was a young, naive but adventurous, single college kid whose eyes were opened wide at my first time ever to Europe.  I was feeling extra nostalgic as I returned as a more refined adult version of my previous self with my sweet husband in tow.  It was amazing to reflect back on myself to see what has changed since I was a young college kid and where my life is now.

Back then, I think we ate street food or bar food every night and didn’t even visit any of the local wineries.  When I plan trips now, I inadvertently plan them around great food or great wine. 🙂 I love the romance of a long, drawn out dinner – you’d rarely find me eating street food or a kebap! But to a 18/19 year old, it was heaven 😉 It’s so funny to see how I’ve grown up over the years!

Germany’s oldest city was once a very wealthy town under the Roman Empire.  The Romans built a wall around the city with four gates around 160 AD.  One of these gates still stands today, referred to as the Porta Negra as it’s grown black from 2000 years of soot.  Our hotel room opened right up to the beautiful Porta Negra!

After we admired our hotel room view, we headed on in to the town.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a pop-up wine bar in the Hauptmarkt, or main market square.  The Mosel Valley is known for Reislings so we made sure to try some right away. We were off to a great start!

We had dinner on the Hauptmarkt and shared a bottle of local wine… and after stumbled upon a science fair called Illuminate Trier.  It was one cool way to introduce the townspeople to student’s science fair!

Saturday was rainy but we still went out exploring around the old town

And walked along the gorgeous Palace Gardens

The massive brown building was built by the Roman Emporer Constantine as his throne room in the 4th centurary AD.  It sits juxtasposed against a 13th centurary Palace.  Such interesting historary in Trier! Today Constantine’s throne room is used as the Protestant Church.

The Palace Gardens are beautiful, I highly recommend if you visit!  They are in between the Roman Bath ruins and the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

We eventually checked out a local winery called Weingut Deutschherrenhof.  It was about a ten minute drive from the Porta Negra.  We originally went just to taste their local wines, but had such a good time we spent the entire evening there, including dinner!  Everything from wine to food was fabulous.

You could definitely tell you were wine tasting in Germany… 🙂 I love the coziness German houses bring!

The next day was a gorgeous fall day.  We took full advantage before our drive back and started with a river cruise down the Mosel.  It leaves from below the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brueke. It was so relaxing!

We were very happy to be soaking up the sun, cruising down the historic Mosel River wtih Reisling vineyards surrounding us!

After the cruise, if you head across the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brueke, you’ll reach a footpath just on the other side of the bridge.  Take this footpath!  It is gorgeous and gives you the prettiest views of the city.

We spent way too long taking lots of pictures on this path.  I used to walk this every day when studying abroad, so it was extra special to me!

This was my favorite spot of the trip…

I made Dave take way too many pictures 😉

BUT it was all worth it, I promise! You get views like this one here.  The Mosel River with Trier and sloping vineyards.  The huge Roman sturctures stick out above Trier’s city scape!  When I think of Trier, this is the image that comes to my mind.  When we studied abroad, we stayed in a Villa on the clif overlooking this.  It was heaven on earth!  Imagine being 18/19 and living the GOOD LIFE!!!

If you wander more on this side of the river, you can find tons of footpaths lined with trees.  The best time of the year to experience this is hands down, Fall.  I am madly in love with the Fall season and all of the beautiful colors it brings!

We walked to my old university.  I was one happy girl!  So many good memories and I got to show my husband a peek into my life way back when.

We finished out our trip with a visit to the massive Catholic Cathedral (maybe you can spot it in the cityscape above?) and a great dinner at another Weingut (winery), Weingut Kesselstatt.  It was basically a biergarten, but for wine.  I loved the vibe and the food was great!

We had a fabulous anniversary weekend, I hope you enjoyed!

Getting there:  

Trier is locaed in Rhineland Pfalz

By car, it’s an easy 3 hour drive from Stuttgart.  By train, about 4 – 4.5 hours from Stuttgart.

Stay:

We stayed in the Mercure Hotel Porta Negra and absolutely loved the view.  Saturday night we came back to our room, snuggled up on our couch in front of the window, admiring the view.

Reccomend:

Definitely spend some time exploring the city and the ruins, there’s so much history inside the town.  But DO get out of the city too!  Explore on the other side of the river, and drive or hike to a local winery.  Getting out of the city for the views and vineyards are so worth it, and it’s close enough it’s easy to do in a quick weekend.

There’s so much to offer here compact into a small space.  Have you ever been to Trier?