non sibi sed toti	Classics Teaching Resources

A fortnight with the Romans in Germany A diary to accompany pictures of the Romans in Germany. Surprising what interesting conversations you can have on a long-distance coach, when you're travelling alone. On the Victoria to Cologne Eurolines coach in August 1994, I sat beside a retired engineer from near Cologne, who had been spending a week in London. He is very interested in history and the Romans, and was able to tell me much about Xanten and other Roman sites in his area. He broke the news to me that the site of Varus' disaster has now been archaeologically verified and is at Osnabruck. If anyone is interested in taking the coach from London to Cologne, I started at 7 pm and arrived at 11 am. The journey was straightforward, with a couple of motorway service area stops, at one of which I was able to wash and shave. Now a warning. Check in advance that there isn't a monster conference on in Cologne, or like me you'll find cheap accommodation all booked solid. I had to pay DM95 (about £40) for a room which was nothing special. (Bear in mind that these are 1994 prices. No Deutchmarks now, only Euros) Having sat up all night in the coach, I had to have a nap before venturing out to see the Germano-Roman museum. It is beside the Cathedral, and includes in its basement a large Dionysus mosaic in situ, as well as a huge monument to a Roman individual which extends through three floors. There are vast displays of glass and pottery, including many bowls with smiling faces. There is also a full-size reconstruction of a type of Roman wagon called a raeda. Next day was Sunday, so I attended 10 a.m. mass in the cathedral. Much was in Latin, which was all right. The choir of young men sang from near the organ, up on a stone upper storey over the north aisle forward of the central crossing. When it was the turn of the congregation to sing, an electronic number board announced the item from a thick service book. It was mainly antiphons to psalms, but there were two verses of a hymn at the end. The sermon, what I could gather of it, was about eating Christ's flesh, based on John 6. I was able to get cheaper accommodation (DM55) in a hotel is in the Fishmarket, down by the Rhine, a place with much more character. It backs on to St Martin's church, a Romanesque building with Roman remains in the basement. Having established base camp I was able to see much: The Praetorium under the Rathaus had extensive foundations of a very big building, and there were many finds in a small museum there; Open to the air were the apse of a huge hall from the Roman palace and a medieval Jewish wash-place, also near the Rathaus; Great St Martin's was open in the afternoon, and I admired the modern mosaics above and the Roman remains below; St. Maria in Kapitol is a Romanesque building with ancient carved wooden doors; the Art Gallery, next to the Germano-Roman museum, has a vast range of art from medieval to ultramodern, and a museum of photography. One amusing thing was a woman who leant against a pillar studying one bit of modern art. She was still there ten minutes later, and turned out to be a waxwork. (I regret to say that with German prices being high I ate at Macdonalds.) Monday: Day trip to Xanten. It was a two-hour train journey, quite expensive but worth it, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. As it was Monday the museum at Xanten was shut, but I had come for the reconstructed town. I walked to the town centre, very pleasant, and found the tourist information in the Town Hall, where I got a little map and was tempted by replica Roman shoes and other replicas, but cash and a small rucksack advised against them. So out to the Roman town, or Archaeological Park. Not the whole site is involved, because some is under a road and farmlands, but there is a long stretch of town wall with several gates, and defensive ditches, and inside there is a complete inn with its baths (the best bit of all), an incomplete temple (with original foundations visible and visitable beneath), an incomplete amphitheatre with complete crane, a games house, a street system, hedges marking outlines of Xanten and Pompeii houses, and a couple of corn mills. Apparently the baths at the inn are in working order. I should love to experience a proper visit to them; even in their inactive state they gave a sensation of the reality that I had not had before. Though I bought postcards, perhaps the best buy was a booklet of Roman games. In the Games House people were able to play board games, puzzles, nut-throwing games and so on, and the booklet tells you the layouts and rules. I left the Park at 5 p.m. and returned to Cologne by the 6.08 train. A quick last look round Cologne, seeing a Roman tower and, I think, a stretch of Roman city wall - the street map said it was, though there was no signboard at the spot. Tuesday 9th August. I packed a good schwartz Brot sandwich of ham and cheese from the serve-yourself breakfast and left for Trier. I had hoped to go by bus, but apparently there is none, so I had to take a train via Koblenz. The trip down beside the Rhine was worth while. I took an inter-city train by mistake and had to pay DM6 surcharge, but it was extra comfortable. I could have stopped to see Koblenz, but I just changed and went on directly to Trier. Trier station is half a mile from the Porta Nigra. It was a pleasant walk, along the strip of parkland between two one-way streets that together make one big boulevard. Porta Nigra is immense, a Roman city gate preserved by being used as a church, and restored to something like its original state by order of Napoleon (c.f. the Pont du Gard). Beside the Porta Nigra is the tourist office, where I was able to get a hotel room on the outskirts of Trier, at the end of the number 1 bus route. You can get 24-hour bus passes quite reasonably. The journey took about 15-20 minutes, but was easy. The hotel looked quite small from the front, but extended back with a covered courtyard and beyond that a row of small en suite rooms of which I had one. A pretty garden stretched a little way beyond that. The room cost DM40, so the prices were coming down as I went on - which was just as well. I'd arrived at Trier at 2 p.m., so there was still time to sight-see. I climbed up inside the Porta Nigra. You could see signs of its previous life as a church, with inscriptions and a few carved figures. I began conscientiously to follow the Michelin Guide in seeing the town. That meant the Municipal Museum (which was closed, but the old cloister effect is pretty), the Dreikonigenhaus (1230), and the Hauptmarkt; a slight detour to the Frankenturm (1100 but otherwise unremarkable) and back to the Dom and the Liebfrauenkirche. By that time everything was closing. Time to mingle with the townspeople in the Square. Very civilised. Wednesday: There was what sounded like a heavy shower on the plastic roof of the hotel courtyard this morning, but all was dry when I set out to town, still using the first 24 hour bus pass. I got off at the bridge that crosses the Moselle, which has Roman piers, an 18th century set of arches and a modern road across the top. Symbolic, somehow. Just down the road are the remains of the Barbara Baths. I began as the only visitor when they opened, but after a while a young man with a guide book also appeared, and as he seemed to be making more sense of the remains, so I got an English guide book and did the thing properly. There's not much to be seen above ground level, but a lot of the underground stuff. Apparently these baths had been used for two centuries. To get to the other baths I had to get one bus into to Porta Nigra and another one out, but with the bus pass that was no problem. There was a children's holiday week going on in what used to be the palaestra of Augustus' baths, with a circle of huts each offering a 'Celtic' activity - simple things like bread making, carpentry, basket-making, fire-making, pottery, sculpture and sewing. The baths themselves were apparently never used. Parts of them stand very tall, and there are two levels below ground. When I was coming out of these baths I met again the young man who had been at the Barbara baths. The Rhineland Museum is near the Augustus baths, all in a big park that extends to the Archbishop's Palace and the Emperor's Palace which is now a church. Entry to the Rhineland Museum is free, but the coffee is very expensive. Several famous artifacts are there, including the relief of the schoolmaster and boys, the relief of the woman being made up by her maids, the painting of the villa, and the Neumagen ship. While I was in that area of the city I walked out to the amphitheatre, which has been much restored, including a suspended floor to the arena. You can go down under it and see the original supports. Otherwise it is not particularly interesting. One Roman amphitheatre is much like another ... I tried to visit the Treasury of the Library, but it was closed because of sickness, according to a notice. So I walked on to the Basilica, the Roman emperor's palace now a church. It was partly destroyed during the war, and has been rebuilt with bare brick inside, where previously there was apparently, conventional plasterwork. Finally I visited the Episcopal Museum with some fine wall paintings from Roman times, and some delightful mediaeval wood carvings of large, almost life-size peasant figures enacting Biblical scenes. When everything closed for the evening, I returned to the old town square and bought some tea, did a drawing and talked to a Vietnamese family reunited from Belgium and Canada. Mum is a doctor and Dad an environmentalist. Later I went back to the Basilica for an organ recital by a Polish organist from Gdansk, who played several pre-Bach pieces which only threw into relief the genius of Bach in the Wedge Prelude and Fugue. He ended with an improvisation which was very impressive. Back to hotel about 10.30. It is still very hot. Thursday: Time to plan for the next stopping place. I got a brochure on hotels and prices. I wanted somewhere between Trier and Koblenz on the Mosel. I sat for an hour in St Gangolf's church, just off the Hauptmarkt, listening to the organ. I left when the organist began his/her programme again. When you stand in the Hauptmarkt you can see written on this church: VIGILATE ET ORATE and on the Cathedral in another direction: NESCITIS QUA HORA DOMINUS VENIET. On the Red House in the same square is this: ANTE ROMAM TREVERIS STETIT ANNIS MILLE TRECENTIS PERSTET ET AETERNA PACE FRUATUR. AMEN. If this is supposed to be an elegiac couplet, the quantity of the third syllable is wrong. Around a 16th century fountain in the middle of the square, set about with female figures, is written: SANCTA IUSTITIA BONOS TUETUR ET SONTES GLADIO FERIT FORTITUDO IN ADVERSIS DOMINATUR ET LAUDABILIS TEMPERANTIA CUNCTA MODERATOR FELIX RESPUBLICA UBI PRUDENTIA SCEPTRA TENET. Friday 12 August I booked, at the Trier tourist office, a room in the village of Mehring on the Mosel. Before leaving Trier I bought Mosella by Ausonius, in a pncy hardback German edition with parallel translation. I managed to read through the whole poem, but without a dictionary there's quite a bit I'm not sure of. (It's only now, 9 years later, that I've got round to studying the poem and attempting a translation.) Outside the railway station the buses start, and thence I got a bus to Mehring, a small clean settlement on the banks of the Mosel with many Weingut signs and several saying Zimmer frei. I found Robert Schroeder's and had a big double room with bath and loo, for DM38 a night. I booked for 3 nights, over the weekend. The room also has a balcony. Frau Schroeder is a motherly type who, when I asked where I could dry my clothes when I washed them, took them off to wash them herself. Among the brochures on the landing was a little map with walks. I followed one, across the bridge, which is said to be about 5 km, and by good luck a came across a reconstructed Roman villa. Saturday: I spent the morning finding my way around the village and trying to get money. The bank was shut, but at last I changed a travellers cheque at the Post Office. This was some little way from the 'centre.' In fact, shops seem to be scattered about the village rather than clustering together. Today's walk from the leaflet was on the near side of the river, up to a chapel almost at the top of the hill. From there I took panorama photos and did a brief sketch to show the position of the Roman villa with modern buildings omitted. Later I walked down to the church square where a Pfarfest (parish festival) started at 8.30 with choirs, dance groups, a band, wine, beer, Bratwurst and ice cream. Sunday: I went to 10 am Mass. It was a sunny day. In this church, rather like in Cologne Cathedral, numbers appeared one at a time, but this time by a sort of projector which I couldn't locate. I'm the only foreigner in the village, I think, and almost the only speaker of English as far as I can tell, but the Priest introduced me to a girl whose family lives in Mehring but who is away during the week studying, and who spoke quite good English. The sermon was more from John 6, but I understood very little. The festival is in aid of Rwanda refugees. After Mass a brass band played the William Tell overture, Tchaikovsy's Italian Caprice, Brahms Hungarian Dance and so forth. I could have stayed for lunch, but I walked to the next village, Polich, along the side of the riverside road. Polich is smaller than Mehring, but had a Roman villa too, on the opposite side of the Mosel to the Mehring villa. What is left is a stretch of water conduit. It is now preserved under a little hill, so that the bottom of the conduit is at modern ground level. There are three man-holes above the conduit. Above the conduit is a shelter with information about the villa. I read it, and then squeezed through the conduit. It was slightly claustrophobic. The villa was where the church is now. I climbed to the top of the hill above Polich and after some false paths I made my way along the crest to the chapel I had visited before. This time seven women were in the chapel, and there were occasional bursts of singing, mainly songs to the Virgin Mary. I waited to hear more, and eventually the women came out. They were apparently just a group of walkers who had popped in for an informal service. Back in Mehring I dropped in to the festival again. People were still on the pudding stage of their communal Sunday lunch, and I had some cake, ice cream and beer. It was all jolly and gemutlich. There was some more singing and dancing on stage, including a sweet tot in scarlet who did a solo dance, entirely self-possessed. Back to the Schroeder's at 5.30 for a little sleep, and out for a delicious schnitzel in the open air at a different restaurant. After a last look in at the festival, where a smaller number were at the final concert, but the wine and beer still flowed, back to bed. Monday: My next objective was to see the reconstructed fort at Saalburg, north of Frankfurt. It was easier to go back by bus to Trier and get a train from there to Frankfurt. Getting to Saalburg was not easy, or at least I didn't find the easy way. I advise intending travellers to do their homework better than I did. From Frankfurt Hbf it took two local trains to get to Saalburg station. I could find no map at or near the station to guide me to the camp, so I set off walking, looking out for somewhere to stay. The only nearby place was a fairly ordinary-looking guest-house with restaurant which charged DM 90! So I turned down an offer to haggle - they'd never have come down to DM 40 - and continued walking till I came to a town called Wehrheim. After wandering among residential roads I found the centre, and a hotel; closed for August. But a man watering the flowers in front of the hotel pointed me to a Gasthof just down the road, in the same building as a music shop, and part of a farmyard with cattle in a barn. DM 38 was good enough, so I booked in for two nights with an old woman who called me 'junge Mann'! She said that the fort is about 3 km away. Tuesday: I enquired in the Rathaus how I could get to the Saalburg camp, and the secretary gave me a local map, but couldn't advise on transport - just wished me luck. So I used the map and walked the 3½ km in lovely sunshine across a pleasant plain and then up a wooded hill where I saw a stag, and so to the fort. I was glad to have approached it in this way rather than via the crowded car park. The fort is well rebuilt: defensive wall and ditch, gatehouses, horrea, principia, ovens, many wells and an unidentified building reconstructed as admin and snack bar; oh, and a pair of barrack blocks now being re-roofed with wooden tiles. The horrea houses an excellent museum which contains finds and reconstructions of things I'd never seen so well preserved before: well-lifting mechanism, planes, pilum points, abacus and so on. I sketched some exhibits. I took a lot of photos and stayed quite a long time at the fort before seeing the Mithraeum and the vicus remains. The Mithraeum is in the woods, rebuilt by a private individual suo sumptu. Then into the woods to trace the LIMES for a bit. They have reconstructed about 50 feet of it with fence and vallum, but the vallum is quite easy to follow the trees. I followed it for about a mile until I came to the first visible remains of a watchtower, and then gave up my grandiose notions of a long walk along the limes, because of the steep hills and the trees, and scrambled down the steep slopes to a village called Obern... that was on my map, and thence back along a different road to Wehrheim. Wednesday: Walked to the station, bought a ticket from a slot machine and rode in to Frankfurt city centre. On the way I met an English TEFL teacher and her son and had a chat. They showed me the proper station to get out at, at Zeil, 'the most important shopping street in Germany' as Michelin says. I walked to the rebuilt old town square, and enquired at the tourist place for a bed for the night. The girl told me that all rooms were very expensive, and advised me to try the youth hostel, on the far side of the Rhine but quite near. I did that, dumped the heavy stuff, and visited the Sculpture Museum - not terribly exciting - and the Stadel Art Gallery, which has some fine paintings alongside some rather provincial ones. Behind the youth hostel is a delightful 'little Soho' of pedestrian streets and cafes, where I found a Macdonalds. Afterwards I found I could have had a more interesting meal for not much more. The chap on the bunk above me snored, and I didn't sleep over-well in the hostel. Thursday 18th August We were all turfed out of the hostel at 8.30, so I walked to the only feature of Frankfurt that rates maximum stars, the Zoo. I was there when it opened, and spent a good time there. Ages since I've been to a zoo; the last time was London Zoo with Poppitt and sundry children when tiny. This zoo is very proud of its record of breeding in captivity, and has one house where day and night are reversed, and you can see nocturnal animals active in near-darkness, once your eyes are accustomed to the lack of light. Spent from 9 to 11.30 there, then walked the length of Zeil, taking in a cheeseburger and coffee on the way, and eventually to the station by 1 o'clock to be ready for the 2 p.m. coach. I waited at the wrong place (where the bus had gone from last year) but an RAF chap seeing his parents off put me right. So uneventfully to London. Top of page