And so a bit over a month over my last mishap over the Mosel, I'm back to where I started. Since I don't need air conditioning anymore in this weather, I'm saving myself valuable commuting time and only staying in Trier over the weekend. It was a miracle that both days of the weekend had clear weather (although I could only use 1 day because I was sick with period pain the first day) - at least I had the wonderful Porta Nigra always right in front of my hotel room window the whole time.
It was a privilege to be able to see the gate in the very early morning light. (in the summer it was impossible because sun rises way earlier than I can wake up) And you get the see the city slowly wakes up to tourists and activities.
I then gingerly drove over to Burg Landshut, the trauma of having my car die on me while in the parking lot still very much alive. On the other hand, I did get an almost new Volvo SUV as a rental this time that had a uncanny feeling of stability and luxury. It took me a bit of detour and getting lost to get to the proper parking lot up a winding road on top of the hill (on hindsight, I guess I could have parked in the main town square and hiked up, but hey, parking is only free high up on the hill so...) I was expecting it to be a small-ish town with a not so well known castle ruin, but boy the non-stop traffic rolling into town at around 10AM really surprised me. Luckily the castle itself wasn't too busy and I could find plenty of spots to stand (or sit on the warm ground) to sketch around. It was great to be able to come back to the Mosel after summer and seeing the patches of coloured leaves pop up.
Warming myself now in the sun after standing in the shadow for too long. I usually shy away from huge patches of just green, but I was up for a challenge this time! The air was humid enough to allow for some work-ability. I'm really happy with how this run turned out. I really had the feeling of time just flash past when drawing out the scenes. It was really therapeutic!
I debated going down to the city centre. But seeing that it was just a 15 mins walk on GoogleMaps I decided to get some exercise. The trek was definitely challenging, and I saw plenty of people struggle, especially in the hot afternoon sun. In the end I didn't make it all the way downhill, because I found a perfect perch on the walls of a vineyard (which also forms the path of the path downhill). Okay, I was originally going to do a scene with the vineyard in the foreground, but just as I was contemplating the scene, 4 old dudes showed up and announced that they needed to relieve themselves in the vineyard (?) so I just awkwardly left. But the new place I found was perfect, I was basically sitting above the heads of all the passerby and had a commanding view of the river, bridge, and surrounding hills.
I still had some strength after recovering in the hotel room for a little bit, so I headed out to finally sketch the Trier cathedral near sunset. As I passed Porta Nigra I noticed a strange man with camera eyeing me sometimes. Since I was walking super quickly (and with purpose) he didn't really talk to me. As I reached the cathedral and started evaluating my angles, the guy spoke to me and told me he works for the local newspaper. He asked if I was a tourist and was quite surprised when I told him I'm not and that I live in Berlin. He said he was doing a feature theme of what people look forward to in Trier and asked if he could take a photo of me. To which I gave my best smile and said, absolutely not. I feel like I might have given him more patience if he actually spoke to me *while* I was painting. Now it just seemed he picked me because I was non-white and only for that reason.
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