U-Man's Hometown

This morning mom and I explored some of Trier’s famous historical sites. The town’s sites are fairly close together, so in a three hour walking tour we hit all of the highlights. These included the Porta Negra, Hauptmarkt, Dom St. Peter, Liebfrauenkirche, Aula Palatina, the Kaiserthermen and the Amphitheater.

All of sites were interesting and worth seeing. The Porta Negra isn’t particularly attractive but it is amazing because it is so dang old. The Hauptmarkt is a beautiful marketplace that looks quintessentially European. The Dom St. Peter is the oldest Cathedral in Germany. Incorporating remains from a 4th-century church, it was built in stages from the early 11th century to the 14th century. The Imperial Baths (Kaiserthermen) had an intricate underground area which was fun to explore. Finally, our last stop was the Amphitheater and I think that may have been my favorite. It took me straight into the movie Gladiator. The ruins date from the 1st century AD. The facility was used for both gladiatorial fights and animal contests. It could seat approximately 20,000 people in its heyday.

By 2 pm mom and I were all packed up and on our way to Cochem. We initially thought we would drive up along the Mosel to enjoy the views. Our GPS had other ideas. It took us a totally random way with a mix of Mosel views, Autobahn roads and random back streets. Fortunately it led us to the right place. We made it to the hotel by 3:45 pm, fifteen minutes before we were supposed to meet Udo. Of course, he was already there.

Cochem is a charming city. After checking into our hotel and getting our stuff up to our room (thanks Udo), we set out to explore the town by foot. It was amazingly fun to finally get to see so many of the places I had heard so much about from Udo. I got to the see the site of his sledding crash, the field he set on fire, the house he grew up in, the church where he was an alter boy, his grandparents house, his school, etc. I’ve heard and thought about this city threw hundreds of hours of training and to finally get to see it, with the U-Man, really was a dream come true.

After our walking tour we went to Udo’s parent’s house. Hans and Finni have visited the US a few times, so I had met them previously. Seeing them again was great. We sat around and chatted as best we could in our terrible German and their pretty good English. In Udo and Kathy’s apartment, which is located above his parent’s, there are lots of old trophies and pictures from Udo’s throwing days. Seeing those was awesome. I’ll try to take a picture of some of them tomorrow, so those of you at home can see how huge of a guy Udo was 25 years ago.

At 6:30ish we went out to dinner with Kathy, Udo, Hans, Finnie and Udo’s nephew Michael. Michael is 20 and a National Junior German Champion Rower with hopes of making it to the 2016 Olympics. He is a very nice young man who speaks pretty darn good English. At the end of a great dinner, where I had awesome elk (I had never eaten elk before), Michael gave us a ride back to our hotel.

I’m now beat from another very, very fun day in Germany. Udo is meeting us at the hotel at 8:45 am (which means 8:30 am), so I need to call it a night. I’ll write tomorrow about our continued adventures in Cochem and along the Mosel.

Until then,

Katy