Saarburg to Saarbrücken

Tues 29 Aug

Beautiful day - AND we had the luxury option of sleeping in although I didn't of course. But at least we could be relaxed - went for a very short walk along the river and through the town, then breakfast, then a walk around the shops. We also had the luxury of not having to check-out until 11am.

Hot walk to the station - why do suitcases seem to get bigger and heavier during the course of a trip? Over 30 deg C again today.

Took the train to Saarbrücken (which is the capital of the Saarland region - pop. over 178,000) and had long walk to hotel but it was directly along the busy Bahnhofstrasse so we had an interesting walk looking at the shop windows as we went😄! Have not seen (in Europe so far) so many people begging!

We were lucky to be able to check in about an hour early and had a short break before heading back to the station to take the train back a few stations to Völklingen.

The Völklingen Hütte (Ironworks) are the world's only surviving smelting works from the Golden Age of the iron and steel industry in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1986 these gigantic ironworks - covering an area of 60 ha - were closed and in 1994 they became the first industrial monument to be added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. The blasting hall with its colossal machines, the smelting works with its six huge blast furnaces, and the world's only inclined ore lift are regarded as some of the finest feats of early 20th century engineering, along with the charging platform – standing just under 30 metres in height – where the coke and ore were poured into the blast furnaces. There is a well-signposted circular tour which runs for around 6 kms and is utterly fascinating.

For some years now, the site has also provided a venue for cultural events and today there was the UrbanArt Bienniale 2017. I liked this one.

We spent a couple of hours here at least - could have spent longer. A fast walk back to the station and we lucked on a fast (non-stop) train back to Saarbrücken followed by a slow amble back to our hotel - but not before I went to the Deutsche Bahn information service at the station. Now here hangs a tale!

I had been concerned that our train tomorrow to Zurich, which has a change of train at Mannheim, involved a short 10-minute transfer there. Now the fellow at the info service said we had to travel on the service to Mannheim that we were ticketed for, but there must have been something 'lost in translation' because he conceded towards the end of our conversation that I could in fact change the ticket at the ticket office. Fortunately the DBahn ticket office was not busy and the first person to serve me quickly flicked me off to her colleague who she reckoned had better English. He showed expressions of doubt in this newly-thrust upon prowess, but he did in fact have more-than-adequate English, although he was thrown by the translation of beschädigten - which he relayed as 'track works'. In fact the DBahn website in English simply says that rail services at the Swiss border 'have been suspended until further notice'; the German version is more informative, indicating that tunnels there have been damaged. So he was right.

The upshot of all this, is that prior to my visit to the DBahn office, I knew nothing of this; nor did the guy at the information kiosk mention it either! So lucky thing that: 1) I was a worry-wart about the transfer time; 2) that I asked; 3) that I persisted.

We now have an entirely NEW schedule tomorrow - new departure time, a bus at the border and a total of 5 trains. Tomorrow will be interesting.

We enjoyed a nice dinner at Puntopasta of the most beautiful hand-made fresh pasta just down the street from our great little central hotel (we stayed here in 2013) when we did the Neckar cycle ride. And then finished off with a yummy yummy icecream from Henrys across from our hotel where I had seen people lining up all day.

Last night in Germany!