Hermeskeil - (Another day trip to Trier) - New Years Day

When we went in for breakfast in the morning our table hadn't been set, and there was no food in sight. Eventually the lady in charge realised and came in and told us that the Americans were leaving early and our fellow dinner room guests were having brunch later, so we had to go and get our food from the spread put out for the Americans. We got the distinct impression that we had been forgotten.

We weren't really sure what to do for the day, as it was a double whammy of Sunday (not much is open in Germany on a Sunday) plus New Years Day. In the end we decided to go to Trier again and see what we had missed the day before. We parked in the same place, and as we expected, nothing was open. But we saw the Roman-built bridge over the Mosel River, and inside a big glass building (which wasn't open because of NY's) we saw some Roman baths which they uncovered when the were excavating to build a car park - which consequently never got built! We also saw Karl Marx's house.

We wandered back to the main drag where we heard music playing. We followed the sound and it turned out to be a small brass ensemble playing hymns and classical pieces on a colonnaded balcony of the cathedral, so the music flooded the square outside the cathedral - quite unexpected!

To fill in some time we had lunch in a bistro/bar where we ordered pizzas, which turned out to be HUGE! After finishing them, we tried to get the attention of the waitress, to pay the bill, but were blanked for half an hour, which filled in some more time too. We headed back to Hermeskeil.

It had been sprinkling a tiny bit throughout the morning, but on the way back, as we moved higher up in altitude, it started to rain, and then the rain got weird and seemed to float, and suddenly we realised it was snowing! In the snow we turned off to visit the local concentration camp, but it was closed and it was snowing quite a lot so we kept going on to Hermeskeil. We took a few photos of it snowing from the youth hostel.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in our dining room writing postcards, reading and knitting (me, not Tim!) and then had dinner in another dining room, with the remaining Americans. Most of them had gone home that morning (to the U.S.) but the remaining ones actually lived in Italy.

I will say here that it was at Hermeskeil that I first remember seeing concrete table tennis tables. It would seem that the YHA in Germany must gotten a good deal on them because they seemed to be at a lot of them. When the soccer world cup was on, I remember one radio correspondent who was staying at the Possenhofen YHA (which we will get to) making a comment about said table tennis tables. I eagerly agreed with the radio that they were quite bizarre!