The Igel Column is one of those Roman monuments that seems to have survived by a happy accident. It stands in the village of Igel, on the Moselle a few kilometres upstream from Trier, a sandstone pillar some twenty-three metres high, covered with carved scenes. It was built in the third century as a funerary monument for the Secundinii, a family of wealthy cloth merchants, and the reliefs show them at work: bales of cloth being loaded and transported, customers being received, and a family meal, as well as mythological scenes on the upper sections. In the Middle Ages, people came to believe it showed the marriage of Constantine's mother, St Helena, which probably saved it from being broken up for building stone.
Goethe saw it and admired it, and today it is grouped with Trier's World Heritage Roman monuments, alongside the Porta Nigra, the imperial baths and the amphitheatre in the city. A copy at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Trier shows the column with its original painted colours, which gives a vivid sense of how gaudy Roman art could be.
The Moselle valley here is lovely riding, with vineyards on the steep slopes, river barges, small wine villages and the long curves of the river. The road along the river, the B49 on the German side and the corresponding roads in Luxembourg, are easy and scenic, though busy at weekends with tourists and cyclists. Igel is right on the border with Luxembourg, across the river at Wasserbillig, where fuel is cheaper and stations crowd the road for exactly that reason; it is a ritual for German riders to fill up there.
Konz, a couple of kilometres downstream where the Saar comes in, covers everything else. A short ride up the Saar takes you to the famous Saarschleife, a dramatic hairpin bend of the river best seen from the viewpoint at Cloef. Moselle wine, especially riesling, is excellent, and the wine taverns in the villages serve it with local dishes like Teerdisch, a potato and sauerkraut mash with bacon. In autumn, the vineyards turn gold and the grape harvest brings busy roads and wine festivals.