"Trier was there one thousand and three hundred years before Rome", that's what an inscription on the Red House in the Main Market says. It's an invention of the Middle Ages, but it has an historical background. In the valley of Trier there were indeed human settlements already in the 3rd millenium before Christ, and Trier was the first place in Germany which could really be called a city.

Nearly at the same time a centre of early Christianity developed in Trier. Parts of the Cathedral date from that time. The Franconians conquered Trier in the 5th century and it became part of the East Franconian-German empire during the Carolingian Imperial Separation in 870. In virtue of the construction of the Market Cross, the Great Market became the centre of the medieval city in 958. In the 12th century the archbishops of Trier became German Electors. They made Trier the capital of their Electorate, which led to experiences of very good and bad times until the dissolution of the Electorate at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. For a short time Trier was under the reign of France, then it became a part of Prussia in 1815. During that period Karl Marx  was born here

 

Dating from about 380 A.D. The Cathedral's ancient masonry of red sandstone, interspersed with layers of bricks is still clearly identifiable in the  north and south walls. Destroyed and rebuilt, modified and enlarged all the time, the Cathedral was repaired and secured from 1964 to 1974, and thus completely overhauled after the destructions of World War II.

 

The Church of Our Lady is considered to be the earliest and most important among Gothic buildings of central construction and altogether one of Germany's first Gothic churches. The remarkably clear and beautiful Gothic design of its foundations is cross-shaped with two chaples built into each of the cross-angles. Here, assimilation of German and French architectural ideas (The Workshops of Soissons and Rheims) achieved a central structure of perfect harmony.