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Venus de Trier
Part of a gorgeous Roman floor mosaic on display in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier. I had a wonderful, leisurely morning in Trier, tying up the loose ends of sights I didn't see last night. After the now-usual hearty German buffet breakfast at my hotel, I hiked down to the
Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, an archaeological museum that Rick's guidebook made sound very exciting. He wasn't wrong, not in the least... the wonderful Roman floor mosaics and funerary monuments were right where he said they would be. However, about half to two-thirds of the museum is closed off and utterly empty. I discovered from a German-language poster (yes, I read much of it all by belf) that they are remodeling in anticipation of some major Karl der Große celebration in 2007... new air-conditioning (desperately needed, for certain), better accessibility of exhibits, new elevator, etc. Seems like all of Europe wants me to come back later. Fortunately, this didn't interfere much with my enjoyment of the aforementioned exhibits at the museum, along with an exciting treasure of Roman gold coins, discovered buried in the city in 1993.
Afterwards, I decided to get cheesy and take the cute little Römischer-Express tourist "train" that does a sightseeing circuit around the city every half hour. Even though I'd seen most of the
Trier lays down the law
This graffiti, in the underpass near the Porta Nigra in Trier, reads: "No sex with Nazis!" sights already, it was a nice way to pick up a few more (such as the front of Karl Marx's birthplace) that I didn't feel like walking to, and it passed the time.
A couple days ago, at some Bahnhof (train station) that I have now forgotten, the nice Deutsche Bahn folks printed me out some itineraries for my various train travel plans, including one route that would leave Trier around 10 AM and, with an easy change in Koblenz, take me right to Karlsruhe by something like 3 PM. Later on, though, I thought I'd rather take more time in Trier and arrive later in Karlsruhe, so I made the fateful decision that I could figure out a new itinerary on my own with my limited Eurail timetable, instead of going back to a Bahnhof and asking again. You will have guessed by now that this was the wrong way to go, and indeed, I ended up in Koblenz looking for a EuroCity train to Karlsruhe at a time when there simply isn't one. I had also given Drea specific instructions to meet me upon the arrival of this non-existent train...
and then ran out of minutes on the prepaid Handy (whose timing is, as always, impeccable). There in Koblenz with no apparent trains going to my destination at all for the rest of the day, I wised up and found a kindly Deutsche Bahn Frau who printed me out another itinerary involving
three more connections to get me to Karlsruhe ASAP... more than 2 hours later than originally planned. I also learned a critical lesson about DB that I
really wish I'd known sooner... the omnipresent Fahrkarten ticket machines will also dispense detailed point-to-point timetable information, in English, at all hours, with no waiting in line to talk to a ticket agent!
In any case, Drea (smart and resourceful as always) quickly figured out that I had sent her to meet an imaginary train, and so phoned me on the Handy (which can receive calls even when it's too low on funds to originate any) to ask, "WTF?!", and thus we got the details of my new arrival all worked out.
Haus Hubig, on the outskirts of Ettlingen which is itself on the outskirts of Karlsruhe, is in a lovely small town and overlooks a peaceful pond with, for a change, ducks rather than pigeons. I have my own room, and of course die Familie Hubig are wonderful and generous hosts. What a fortunate landing place after a bit more time on trains than even I would have liked. There's still a bit more sightseeing in store, but the watchwords for the rest of this week are "leisurely" and "restful".
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