Trier Sports & Outdoors

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Most people try to rush Trier on a budget so they end up missing some of the highlights in a whirlwind. The key to seeing Trier properly is a game plan, you must know what you want to see before setting out. Before we visited Trier we saw on a city map that the ancient town of Trier can be divided into three areas - the historical old town, the area near the Moselle River and the residential area around the amphitheatre. We visited the city several times, every time we hiked our way through one of the areas.

Our first hike was the old town where the city is one huge archaeological site which received the UNESCO World Heritage designation in the year 1986. It was quite strenious sometimes, but definately worth while! We started at Porta Nigra, made our way to the Main square and finally hiked way down until it ended at the Trier Cathedral, a Roman Catholic church which dates back to Roman times and is home to the Holy Tunic, a garment with a recorded history back to the 12th century. While most tour guides don't recommend getting lost in the alley´s, this part of Trier is the place to get hopelessly lost for half a day. We wondered off through mysterious and steep alleyways leading us away from the crowds. We ended up at the church of St. Paulin, mazes of hilly backstreets and deserted gardens. The real Trier?

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Trier is a city with more than 2,100 years of history. The ancient city of Augusta Treverorum was founded in 30 BC and its golden age began in the year 450 AD. The compact town of Trier is easy to get around, and the ideal place to explore on foot. Trier is Germany, and yet it is a culture unto itself. It was established centuries before ancient Rome and its legacy of monuments can be admired in the streets to this day. Historical buildings to stroll around include the 12th century cathedral, Porta Nigra (180 AD), numerous churches, an amphitheater, Roman bridge, old Jewish cementery and the defensive walls reveal delights at every turn. Time to explore it!

We can honestly state that the best way to explore Trier is by foot and the second best way is also by foot! Besides giving you the opportunity to roam the narrow streets and the cosy squares, it is the quickest way too. If you really want to, you can cross the city centre in approximately 35 minutes. Remember that sometimes it might be quicker (and nicer!) to take a few short-cuts into picturesque alleys instead of following the masses of tourists. Maybe this is easy for us to say as we stayed for a longer period of time and not like most of the tourists only for one day. But even when your stay is rather short, do try to get away from the crowds and just have a 'look around'. Trier is simply a perfect place to walk for a few hours and pretending to know where you are.

Equipment: Have a look at Trierer Packing List.

Mosel valley offers many. Beautiful nature & sunset, wild gooses, grape yard, old buildings, etc. The locals enjoy them while biking, picnic, skating (roler-blade), fishing, water-skiing, canoing, camping, sailing, or simply walking. If you are tired, there are several cafes & restaurants, unfortunately the distance is not so close to each other. the best places are near the kaiser-willheim brige. Fyi, you can't walk along the valley when water is high. The pedestrian area will be closed.

I'm usually aware of any football games happening on my travels, missed this one until the day before when we saw an advert for it, needless to say ,we were there. Result was a 1-0 home win against the top of 2Bundesliga side MSV Duisburg. Small stadium was packed with I guess around 10,000 fans in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Beware the beer is alchohol free though - very bad!

We were thinking what to do on Sunday evening and then we found a Bowling place. It is great fun, and the waitresses bring you next beer automatically when you have finished the previous beer. There seemed to be many groups of young people, so this seems to be one way of spending evenings for the local youth.

Equipment: You get shoes and balls, so basically you don't need anything with you beforehand.

This is for the most courageous ones: swimming in Mosel in the middle of winter. There is of course no ice because the stream is so powerful, so it is fairly easy just to take of your clothes and jump to the river.

The water is a bit warmer than in Finland in the winter, maybe about 5 degrees. Beware for the strong stream.

Equipment: You don't need any equipment whatsoever.

Rally Deutschland which is part of the world championship schedule is held in the summer in this region. I was glad to see the Finnish drivers on the podium when I was here, well, it is very usual thing, after all they are the flying Finns.

Equipment: Peugeot, Ford, Subaru, Hyundai, Skoda & Citroën