Explorer Trèves

The Hauptmarkt is Trier's central market square, laid out in 958 under Archbishop Heinrich I and marked by the Marktkreuz, among the oldest medieval market crosses in Europe. Surrounded by gabled townhouses, the Gothic St. Gangolf church and the Renaissance-era Steipe hall, it remains the city's main gathering place.

The Liebfrauenkirche stands beside Trier Cathedral and was built between about 1230 and 1260 in French High Gothic style, the earliest church of its kind outside France. Twelve columns and eight rounded chapels are arranged around a central space shaped like a rose.

Trier Cathedral is Germany's oldest cathedral, its core built from Roman brick around AD 270, with the present Romanesque structure raised between 1035 and 1270 under successive archbishops. Its west front rises in four towers, and the treasury displays the Holy Robe, a relic linked to Christ.

The Karl Marx House is an 18th-century townhouse in Trier where the philosopher and economist Karl Marx was born in 1818. Since 1947 it has operated as a museum run by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, with exhibits on his life, his writings and the spread of his ideas.

The Aula Palatina is a vast Roman palace hall built around AD 300-310 for Emperor Constantine, and is the largest surviving single room from antiquity. Since the 19th century it has served as a Protestant church, known locally as the Konstantinbasilika.

The Electoral Palace is an 18th-century residence in Trier, built on the site of a Roman imperial palace and rebuilt in Rococo style from 1756 under Archbishop-Elector Johann Philipp von Walderdorff. Bombed in the Second World War and later restored, it now houses state government offices, while its garden remains open to the public.

The Porta Nigra is a Roman city gate built in grey sandstone after around AD 170, the only one of the four gates that once protected Trier to survive. Its stone darkened over the centuries, giving it the name 'black gate'; visitors can climb through its towers and upper galleries.

The Trier Imperial Baths are the ruins of a vast Roman bathing complex begun around AD 300 for Emperor Constantine's residence but never finished. Visitors can walk among the surviving walls and heating chambers, and through a network of underground passages built for the complex's staff.

The Roman Bridge crosses the Moselle on nine stone pillars dating from the 2nd century AD, making it the oldest standing bridge in Germany. Its roadway was rebuilt after wartime damage in the 12th and again in the 18th century, and the bridge still carries traffic across the river today.

The Trier Amphitheater was cut into a hillside in the 2nd century AD and could seat around 20,000 spectators for gladiator fights and animal hunts. Underground chambers once held animals and performers; today the oval arena and its surrounding earth banks remain open to visitors.

St. Matthias' Abbey is a Benedictine monastery and basilica south of Trier's old town, built from the 12th century over the reputed tomb of the apostle Matthias, the only such burial north of the Alps. Its Romanesque crypt remains a pilgrimage site, and the basilica stays open daily for visitors.