Trier

Trier is also a somewhat obscure city, situated near the German border with Luxembourg. It however dates back to Roman times and the Porta Nigra is a reminder of its origins. It was 2000 years old in 1984. Unwittingly I seemed to have chosen destinations with hidden connections. Like the time I went to Cuba and then to the Canaries immediately after. It turned out that many Cubans had come from the Canaries, and also many Canarians are Cubans who left the country after the revolution and set up cigar manufacturing in the Canaries, no less. But I digress; that belongs to another blog.

I woke rather early and wondered if there was any breakfast served. I didn't think so and so it was, this hostel was a self-service place. I took some cereal from the communal food area and some milk from the common area in the fridge and made do with that. There was another occupant in the kitchen, a very plump cat called Neeza. Obviously she was very good at wheedling food from people; there was a note on the fridge reading: Please do not feed Neeza.

I decided to wait until the office opened to pay for my lodging. Also there was an Internet terminal. They were very nice people in the hostel office. Then I walked to the shopping centre next to the bus terminus and looked through the electrical supermarket and ended up buying a CD by Paolo Fresu and Richard Galliano. I'm not sure now why I didn't go sightseeing right away. Maybe I just got distracted after having not been much of a consumer for weeks.

The Porta Nigra was living up to its name. It looked like it needed a really good scrub. Of course that can't be done, it's world heritage, dirt and all.

The city streets and buildings are neat, in marked contrast to Italy. There were many schoolchildren wandering around, probably on excursion. Also many older tourists. There was a market underway in the square.

I saw a stall with cherries for 6€ a kilo. That was more than I used to pay down south, but these were a different variety, very plump and inviting so I bought ½ kilo.

A touch of colour on a slightly gray day.

This is one face of Trier Cathedral (Dom).

By this time I needed lunch so I walked back to the station where I had seen a kebap shop. Turkish shops are good places to get a cheap meal in Germany. After that an apricot danish from a pastry shop a couple of doors away.

I bought some food at the Kaufland in the shopping centre. Boy they sure do have a lot of cheap wines. Just shows the great buying power of large supermarket chains. Then I took the food back to the hostel where I ate half the cherries (yum!) and saved the other half.

In the afternoon I ventured out again, visiting different streets.

This Apotheke building took my fancy.

One thing puzzled me and that was how to visit towns downstream on the Mosel. The trains didn't go to Berncastel-Kues or Traban-Trarbach. At the tourist office they gave me the timetable of bus line 333. But this was only between the towns of Neumagen and B-K. At the hostel, they printed for me the timetable for another section. Finally I got onto the Internet and looked at the regional transport timetables and understood. Like the blind men and the elephant, they had each given me part of the answer. The bus route is in 4 sections. The Mosel is sinous and its valley deep, so the trains do not reach the smaller towns, only bus services do. It looked like if I wanted to go to the hostel at Traban-Trarbach, I should take the train to Bulay and then backtrack by bus.

At about 1830 I woke from my nap feeling peckish so I started cooking dinner. I was having corned beef with hash potatoes and an omlette. There were a couple of girls in the kitchen making ravioli who sounded like they might be Quebecois. Poor girls, I must have made the kitchen stink of beef. I made too much so I packed the leftovers in foil. I surreptitiously gave a couple of morsels to Neeza.

As I was cooking, it started raining heavily. The weather forecast on the TV said more rain was expected. Well that put paid to my idea of an evening stroll in the city, despite it being still light at 2200. Nothing for it but to read a book and write in the diary, then go to bed.

Treviso

I had to be in Treviso to catch a Ryanair flight to Frankfurt in the evening. Ryanair's tactic is to use regional airports that are close to major cities. So for example, Treviso is advertised as Venice, Frankfurt Hahn (a former military airport about 100km out of Frankfurt) is advertised as Frankfurt, and Girona is advertised as Barcelona. In Ryanair's defense, they do negotiate for or arrange shuttle services to the major cities.

The Chinese couple in the room last night looked odd. They had big suitcases with them and didn't look like backpackers. Maybe they were planning to set up yet another variety store. Then again they may have been tourists, I saw them consulting maps. Who knows?

I copied some details for Treviso from the guidebook and then abandoned it in the hostel. The book was actually 12 years old from a previous trip and the information about establishments was out of date. City sights had been the same for centuries of course.

I decided to take an earlier train to avoid the heat. But I only ended up killing time at Mestre and taking the exact train to Treviso that I had originally decided on. There were lots of people at Mestre, moving in or out of Venezia. At Treviso, I noted the bus stand for the airport, then parked my backpack in storage. I wondered if I was imagining it, but the Trevisiani I dealt with seemed a bit jumpy. Maybe they didn't like working on a Sunday morning.

Treviso is a prosperous city, being the headquarters of clothing giant Benetton, appliance manufacturer DeLonghi, and other names. I found the main Piazza dei Signori easily. Many people were out having a coffee and enjoying the day.

This looks like a nice lunch doesn't it? However it's actually an ice-cream desert made to look like a spaghetti dish. For lunch I went to Treviso's Brek, mostly to avoid looking too hard for a restaurant. The milanese was too salty, but the Nastro Azzurro beer was ok. Incidentally Northern Italy and Austria claim the milanese or schnitzel respectively as their cuisine. I suppose it isn't too hard to come up with the idea of pounding a filet of meat flat, coating it with bread crumbs and frying it.

At the supermarket I encountered these fascinating Saturn Peaches. They looked like they had been sat on, but they were heavenly so I went back and bought some more. At that time I didn't know what they were called, but I have since discovered that they are called pan tao in China. Other names include donut peach. They have gained popularity in recent years as people look for variety and I saw some recently in Sydney.

I took a walk on the outside of the old city walls to spend time. Treviso claims it has canals like Venezia's. In their dreams. Not a patch on Venezia. The river Sile is grotty in places. However it is a pleasant walk.

I retrieved my backpack and hopped onto the airport bus. It was warm and I figured that there would be air-conditioning in the airport. The airport is just 3km out of the city. That close; this I had to see. The bus left before the scheduled time. Or maybe it was the previous service, late. This was Italy, so who knows?

In fact Treviso airport was so undistinguished that I missed it. From the road it looked like a medium sized hotel or office building. I only realised this when the bus reached the end of the run. Never mind, I had heaps of time; I'll just stay on the bus for the return trip. The bus driver said, good-humouredly, why didn't you tell me you wanted to get off at the airport? Non importa, ho tempo, I said.

Ryanair, like other budget airlines, has tricks to squeeze more money from customers. The basic ticket is often a great bargain, but then you have to add on charges and taxes. A surcharge might be levied for non-partner credit cards. A basic 15kg luggage allowance has to be purchased in advance. Paying at the airport or wanting more allowance will cost more. You have to pay more if you want priority seating. If you want food or drink you have to buy it. There was even talk of charging for using the plane's toilet. Still, some ticket prices are incredible, starting at 1€. I have to say I am in favour of cheap no-frills services but some of the money-extraction ideas are risible and petty.

Another thing these airlines do is build a lot of leeway into their schedule so that when they arrive early, this is hailed as great service and boosts their statistics. This was what happened—we arrived early at Frankfurt Hahn. To no avail though, the shuttle to Trier did not leave until the scheduled time. I got into the hostel about 2200. I had told them in advance that I would be late so they had left my room key on a hook. Then I went out and had some fast food for dinner. I had eaten a sandwich on the plane so I hadn't starved. It was a cool 19C and drizzling mildly when I arrived at Hahn. Well, that's the end of the sunny weather, I thought. I had no idea how right I was to be in the days to come.