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Few German cities carry as much accumulated history as Trier. Situated on the Moselle in the far west of Rhineland-Palatinate, close to the Luxembourg border, it holds a strong claim to being the oldest city in Germany, with roots stretching back to the Roman settlement of Augusta Treverorum, founded around 16 BC. That antiquity is not merely a matter of civic pride; it is written into the fabric of the streets. The Porta Nigra, the great blackened sandstone gate that has stood at the northern edge of the old town for nearly two millennia, remains one of the best-preserved Roman structures north of the Alps. Walk a short distance from it and you encounter the remains of Roman baths, an imperial throne room converted into a Protestant church, and an amphitheatre that once held tens of thousands of spectators.

The city's Roman inheritance sits alongside a medieval and Baroque layer that accumulated during the centuries when Trier served as the seat of powerful prince-archbishops. The cathedral, the Dom St Peter, is the oldest bishop's church in the German-speaking world, and its treasury holds the Heilig Rock, a relic that has drawn pilgrims for centuries. The market square nearby, the Hauptmarkt, is one of the most handsome in the Rhineland, framed by merchant houses and anchored by a tenth-century market cross. Trier is compact enough that a visitor on foot can move between Roman, Romanesque, and Baroque within a single afternoon without retracing a step.