From the Main Square we make our way towards the Porta Nigra and the nearby City Museum of the Simeonstift. It is a hot but otherwise nice walk passing next to another former major department store, Karstadt, that is bankrupt also. And for the same reason, both were bought by an Austrian billionaire and when his company crashed and he got arrested all these department stores were swept up in the bankrupcy.
Our initial plan is to enter Porta Nigra first but when we ask there are no toilets and we would like to have one so we change our first choice to the city museum right next door where we have a discount via our Roman Pass.
The City Museum is housed in the Simeonstift, the previous St Simeon’s Collegiate Church. This was created in 1037 at the edge of the Roman Wall and included Porta Nigra as a twin church. The reason for its creation was that Simeon of Trier settled in the Porta Nigra as a hermit in the gate’s east tower. After his death he was buried in his room on the ground floor and then canonized and so in honor of the new saint they built the convent and converted Porta Nigra. The new church was converted back to a tower in 1804 by the order of Napoleon reverting to how it looks today.
From the basement we take the elevator to the top and plan to descend on foot from high up. The first exhibit is quite an interesting one, it seems there was a donation of Asian figurines to the museum and they are exhibited here in the “Other” section.
There are actually quite a few interesting figurines and we look at the cabinet carefully trying to find the most interesting ones before moving on.
There is also a small section dedicated to the decreasing numbers of bars and the issues that this creates. Actually not sure what the issues are if fewer people are drunk but maybe there is some economic impact?
The major exhibit here is actually the fashion exhibit with lots of women clothes from late 19th century and early 20th century eras.
This was the time to be both bold and conservative with corsets being still en vogue but bright colors and tight fitting dresses becoming more popular.
There is also a small section with older clothes including possibly a copy of the Holy Robe from the Trier Dom. And a weird mask, quite unexpected between all the dresses.
There are also a few paintings here both showing fashion choices during the exhibit era and some focused on bars and inns and drunkeness including one where the wifes are beating two drunkards and gamblers that are fighting with each other. Which to us seems like good advertisement for fewer bars truth be told.
Going downwards the next floor is closed due to renovations so we move on to the next one which follows the history of Trier from Antiquity. It starts with a beautiful diorama showing how Trier looked during medieval times including Porta Nigra and Simeonstift nearby.
Obviously the medieval section is full of religious objects, Trier was a major Bishop seat during medieval times. The Archbishop of Trier was a powerful Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, one of only seven, and that is the reason for the many churches and saints and religious sights in the city.
We explore the section relatively fast focusing on the day to day items and paintings and not so much on the religious ones as we cannot distinguish between the various saints.
Next is a section about different architectural styles in the last two centuries, quite interesting really. And that continues into a section about World War 2 showing how the city was destoyed by a major bombing raid in late 1944.
There are also a few exhibits showing how people lived during the Nazi regime and that includes Luxembourg that was conquered and incorporated into Germany.
From here you can exit onto the balcony and walk around the interior courtyard for a while passing by beautiful statues and enjoying the views.
The views are specifically of the interior cloister courtyard but more iconic the view of Porta Nigra which was the church of Simeonstift for hundreds of years and therefore towers over it.
And then it is time to leave as we still have to visit Porta Nigra however at the exit there is one more hall with multiple statues and an interesting exhibit showing how Trier started claiming to be founded by an Assyrian prince, just to get ahead of the other Electoral Archbishops nearby. It is quite generous to say it is a mythical founding, it is more like a completely invested founding. And then we are out exploring both the shop here and in the visitor center and buying some souvenirs before entering Porta Nigra, the major goal for the day.
