Sinan: The Transformation

It's officially Springtime here in Metz! I went on a bike ride on Friday with one of the other kids at GTL and it was as if the town just completely changed into a different place. The streets were full of people walking around, the restaurants put tables and chairs out on their terraces, and the weather is beautiful.

We started out by following one of the numerous bike paths in the direction of the city. It went through a couple small parks and ended up at one of the rivers in the town, called the Seille, with a really imposing castle-looking structure right next to it. I found out that it's called the Porte des Allemands, or the German Gate. It was one of the original gates to the city, and part of it was built in the 1200s!

The towers behind me were built in the 13th century.

After checking that out, we biked to the center of town and came across a sort of open-air market for landscaping and gardening, where a sculptor was in the middle of making a sand sculpture. It was really amazing seeing how he made his scuplture--he basically only used his hands and a shovel!

Then we went over to the Moselle River, which is the main river that runs through Metz. Just up the hill from the river, we saw a really old looking church and decided to check it out. Apparently it was built by the Romans in the 4th century AD. We couldn't go inside but it was really cool just running into all these ancient things in the town that I live in. One thing about Europe that I've noticed is that no matter where you go, you come across all these beautiful historic landmarks, and there are remnants from the Romans all over France. It really wasn't that out of the ordinary to stumble across Roman building that's over 1700 years old in the middle of Metz. Apparently the town also has some aqueducts from the Romans, but I havent found any yet. Maybe I'll run into them on the next bike ride along the river.