The Main Church by sargentjeff
The Cathedral is beautiful, and I haven't been to a church before that allowed visitors so much access to the sites within. It was nice to get out of the cold.The present Cathedral stands on top of a former Constantinian Palace. After Constantine's last visit to Trier in A.D. 328/9, the palace was leveled in 330 and replaced by the largest Christian church in Antiquity, about four times as big as the present-day church and covering the area of the Cathedral and the Church of Our Lady, the Cathedral Square, the adjoining garden, and the houses almost up to the market.Today's Cathedral still contains a Roman central section with the original walls rising up to a height of 26 m (86 ft). The huge fragment of a granite column next to the entrance to the Cathedral is another indication of the Roman origin of the building. After destructions in the 5th and 9th centuries, the remaining nucleus was enlarged by Romanesque additions - today, the Cathedral, with its three crypts, its cloister, Cathedral Treasury, and Holy Robe Chapel, displays architecture and artwork from more than 1650 years.
