I know that posts about McDonald’s aren’t particularly exciting, and it’s not exactly authentic local cuisine. But, as with Bremen, a visit to a German McDonald’s gets a mention as they sell the McRib, the only country where this delicacy is on the permanent menu.
It’s never that well presented, but as I mentioned before, it’s all about the taste.
I walked through this Roman gate last year and was tempted to go in, but time was too tight…. So, this time, it was the first place that I went. Actually, it was the second as I want to go to McDonald’s for a McRib (they’re the only country that offers them on the permanent menu, I’ll post about that separately), but this was the first historic place.
Looking down onto the ticket hall.
This building was originally a Roman gate and it was constructed in around the period 160-200AD. The above photo is a reconstruction of what the view out of the window might have looked like. All in all, this was an impressive gateway, it’s also the largest Roman gate still standing north of the Alps.
The stonework on the floor marks the original line of the Roman road, where it formerly connected to the main street. The modern street line bypasses the gate, since it’s not really wide enough to have let the volume of carriages and cars through which has been necessary over the last couple of centuries.
After the Romans left, the locals kept pinching bits of the gate, which wasn’t ideal. In the Middle Ages some of the locals would pinch the iron clamps between the blocks of stones and sometimes they just carted off the stone itself to use in their own building efforts.
The stone was originally white as it’s sandstone, but wear and tear on the gate over time led to it being called Porta Nigra, or the Black Gate. Modern air pollution isn’t helping the situation either, although there was a large conservation effort in the early 1970s which helped, and there’s probably a need for another now.
The authorities never decided to demolish the gate, they thought that they’d keep it. This was partly, but not entirely, down to a hermit deciding that he’d like to live in the gate. I can think of worse places, although he picked a rather miserable bit of the structure, the ground floor room in the photo above.
The hermit who had chosen to live in the building was Simeon and when he died the local Bishop, who was known as Poppo, decreed that the gate should become a church. This was a marvellous decision, as it ensured that the building wasn’t demolished and it could continue in use. The photo above is taken looking inwards and the former roof line of the vaulted ceiling of the church can still be seen.
The building has four levels, the ground floor (obviously), then the floor above which was used for public worship when it was a church, and then two upper floors which were used by the monks. Above is a photo of the top floor where the vaulted ceiling of the chapter house was once located. There also used to be a spire above here, but this was later removed.
What is now the first floor of the building was also the entrance, with banked up earth leading people up to former entrance doors such as this one.
I think this is where the organ used to be in the church. On which point, most of this structure is now open to the elements, even though it is mostly roofed over. None of the windows have glass in and it does all feel like it’s deteriorating, especially as in this room there’s dripping water from above.
The interior of a former chapel.
Visitors can’t walk around here, it’s the former gallery which runs behind the chancel.
An old tablet from the church, one of the few things which has any form of protection over it. There’s quite a lot of modern graffiti in the stone around the structure as well which isn’t a particularly pleasant look, although I suppose it will in time become part of the building’s history.
Another photo looking inwards towards what would have been the interior of the gate. The structure remained as a church until Napoleon came along and decided that he wanted to occupy Trier and he suppressed it and brought it into state control. He started to make efforts to restore it to a Roman gate and that’s sort of what the situation is today. The building has been used for various purposes over the last two centuries, but it is now likely to permanently remain as a museum.
I initially walked around this structure moaning (only to myself) about the lack of information on it. However, I then discovered that the friendly staff member had handed me a small foldout explanation of the site, so I had to walk around it all again to get a better context of what it was all about. A fascinating building and I liked how a church had been incorporated into the former gate.
Since I’m back in Germany, it seemed a very good idea to partake in one of their best national dishes. So, I came to Braterei Betz to have a currywurst with pomme frites.
The service was friendly and prompt, with the sausage being covered in a spicy sauce and the chips had a dollop of ketchup on them. It might not be the most glamorous of dishes, but it’s cheap (around £4) and nutritious. Actually, it’s probably not very nutritious, but it tastes decent, so that’ll do me.
I came to Trier in June 2018 during a four hour stopover between Flixbus coaches. I saw how many Roman museums there were here so thought it’d be better to come back and visit them all properly, rather than just quickly go round one or two. So, seven months later, I’m back in the beautiful German city of Trier.
Now closed off, this is an original part of Valletta’s defences, as constructed by the Knights of the Order of St. John. It’s not particularly interesting in itself, but in its unrepaired state it feels like a little bit of a connection with the Valletta of the sixteenth century. Well, I say sixteenth century, it might be slightly later, but I don’t want to ruin the magical idea that I had given myself that it was sixteenth century….
This is the ‘Flame Which Never Dies’ sculpture which looks over the city of Valletta which was unveiled on 7 July 2017. It was designed to mark the country’s Presidency of the European Council and was designed by Valerio Schembri.
The sculpture is designed to “reflect the enthusiasm and continuous work of the Maltese to decide their own future while improving their standard of living”, so a recognition of those who contributed to ensure that Malta could determine its own future.
Borġ in-Nadur is a temple arrangement dating back to 2,500BC located near to the town of Birżebbuġa. The site was then turned from a religious site into a Bronze Age village and numerous buildings were constructed around it. I thought it was interesting that they also fortified their settlement, a forerunner to the later efforts of the Knights of St. John which were on a much larger scale.
The villagers were concerned about an attack from the land, rather than the sea, and this site is the oldest fortification in Malta. The complex was discovered again in the sixteenth century, with numerous digs taking place in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
I didn’t expect this site to be open, but was I told at another Heritage Malta site that they were opening it up for the day, so I trekked off down here. There was a lady at the entrance who was friendly and gave me an A4 laminated sheet to help me understand the site. I was the only person at the site and she did say that it hadn’t been very busy.
This is the A4 sheet explaining the site. I didn’t understand any of it as I couldn’t work out what rocks on the ground related to this plan. I think I vaguely worked it out towards the end, after tramping about the publicly accessible part of the site, but I didn’t exactly feel like I knew what I was doing.
Entrance was free with the Malta Heritage Pass and although I didn’t really understand the site in its entirety, it was pleasant to see something which was so old and was still standing.
Just working through the photos that I didn’t upload during the week, here are some of the city defences. This is also the main entrance point into Valletta, the Knights of St. John certainly made their capital city look imposing.
For reasons I don’t entirely understand, but won’t complain about, the National Aquarium is on the list of locations that I can visit free of charge with my Malta Heritage Pass. But, aquariums are exciting (not as exciting as zoos though), so given that it was free to go in, I went.
Jellyfish!
This very much discriminated against tall people, as children and short adults could walk through this mini-tunnel. This reminds me, this is another place that Dylan and Leon would like. Not because they’re short, which they obviously are because they’re young, but because they’re children.
Urgh.
Horrible.
A walk through tunnel, this one was suitable for people of all heights and ages.
A happy little octopus. I admit that I don’t know if he was happy, but he didn’t look unhappy, and I like to think that he was having a lovely time.
A frog thing.
A chameleon.
And lots more fish and other associated items.
It’s quite an expensive aquarium to get in, and irritatingly for some visitors, they might go to the on-site cafe afterwards and then be given a discount voucher. Not a great deal of use at that point…. I got in free with my heritage card, but I’m not sure that I would have paid the full price.
There was also one of those photographers standing by the entrance, who I had to rush by whilst not looking rude, with some exorbitant price charged at the end for those who wanted to keep their photo. I thought that attractions were doing away with this now, or letting visitors have the photo for free. It doesn’t give a great welcome in my view, for what that’s worth…
It’s not that big an attraction either, I think I was in there for under an hour, although I was distracted reading something in the Guardian for some of that time. It was busier than I thought it’d be, although by no means packed, but it is perhaps rather more busy during the summer months.
Malta’s international airport only has one lounge in departures (there is another in arrivals, which I’ll go to next week) and it’s a clean and organised set-up. It’s one of those airport lounges which is easy to find, sometimes they seem to be like the toilets at Wetherspoons, at the back of beyond somewhere.
The staff member was friendly at reception although she asked if I had visited before and I said “no” and she then didn’t tell me anything about the lounge anyway, which seemed slightly bizarre. Anyway, there wasn’t much to really say about the lounge, it’s quite spacious and the food and drink options are pretty obvious. I didn’t opt for any alcohol, since it was before mid-day, but it was all self-pour and there were named brands available. The coffee was good too, and I didn’t break the coffee machine.
This photo is a bit washed out as the sun was shining in, but there’s a decent view over the tarmac.
There’s an area for those who wanted to recline, and there’s also an outside terrace for smokers, which I didn’t investigate for obvious reasons.
This is what I want to see, some cold meats and cheese. I didn’t bother with the fruit, but I’m sure that it was lovely.
The pea cakes on the left were very moreish, as can be evidenced with the knowledge that I had seven of them.
Muffins and cakes, which were perfectly acceptable.
All in all, a perfectly nice lounge, and I look forwards to another visit there. Everything was clean, the staff were polite and the food and drink met my expectations.
