Hauptmarkt (Main Market)

The center of the city for nearly 2000 years: with Market Cross, 958 and St. Peter's Fountain, 1595; Gothic church of St. Gangolf 14th/15th century, steeple from 1507. The Steipe, a councillors' banqueting house, was built in 15th century, the Red House, 1684.

After the Viking destruction of 882, the archbishop moved the market from the river to the present site, the Market Cross still commemorates this event from 958. The original of the cross is in the Municipal Museum; the column shaft is a recycled granite column from the Roman Cathedral. Trier contains only a few half-timbered houses - the Roman tradition of erecting stone buildings never really died out here, if only for the fact that Roman stone material was available for recycling everywhere.

The Main Market became the center of medieval Trier with market (for over a thousand years now), with the pillary (reconstructed on the south end of the market), the official city yardstick (reconstruction) at the Steipe, the city council's banqueting house, with immediate access to the city church St. Gangolf (through the little baroque gate on the south side, the church itself is completely surrounded by stalls and houses), access to the Cathedral, to the Jewish Quarter as well as to six streets altogether. The Market Fountain from 1595 shows St. Peter, the patron saint of the Cathedral as well as the city, standing on top, surrounded by the four cardinal virtues of good city government, Justice, Strength, Temperance, and Wisdom (originals in the Municipal Museum), but also by monsters and frolicking monkeys. The fountain, just like the Cathedral and the parish and guild church St. Gangolf as well the Steipe, are all rooted in the 300-year struggle for supremacy in the city.