Saarbrücken; Friday, 16 October, 2020

Breakfast in the hotel was a slightly odd affair – everything was on clingfilm wrapped plates, but you still had to be served your plate by the chef – which even for Covid appeared a little excessive. After breakfast I checked out of the hotel and walked back down the hill to the Hauptbahnhof and over to the platform for my train to Saarbrücken.

It was a very pleasant, if slow ride taking nearly 2 and a half hours to go the 125Km, possibly not helped by the train randomly stopping a number of times for no apparent reason, which meant we were 15 minutes late by the time we finally arrived at the Hauptbahnhof. I walked the short distance from the station down to the hotel in the hope that I could either checkin or leave my luggage. Thankfully it turned out that my room was ready, so I was able to checkin, drop off my stuff and then head out to explore the city.

I had plans for later in the afternoon, so I only had a little time to explore the city. I set off walking along the riverside from behind the hotel down to the Old Bridge, the only surviving pre-war bridge across the Saar river in the city. The bridge, which has been pedestrianised, links the heart of the old town to the castle on a hill on the opposite bank, so I crossed over and was intending on hiking up the hill. However, down at street level was the Schloßkirche which was open so I popped in there first. Turns out this is now a part of one of the city museums so I had a look round that, and via the use of lifts inside the museum emerged onto the Schloßplatz without having expended very much in the way of energy.

After taking in the museum I had a quick wander around the Schloßplatz. The castle itself is a strange mix of palace and conference centre with the very centre being a possibly 1980’s glass structure. It’s also not currently open so I didn’t bother going inside, instead I had a wander around the small amount of battlements that still survive overlooking the river before heading back down to the Alte Brücke and crossing it back into the old town.

I wandered past the spectacular Town Hall before I headed on my way back to the station to pick up the train to go to my main destination for the afternoon. Sadly, I just missed the Express train that I was aiming for and instead had to catch the local stopping train that left 15 minutes later and that meant that I then had nearly an hour to kill when I got to my stop for the afternoon in Mettlach.

The journey following the Saar river was very pretty (once you got away from the iron works, slag heaps and mines in the near vicinity of Saarbrücken) and after arriving in Mettlach I wandered down through the town to the riverside. I had a bit of a wander around the town before it was time to catch the bus that I was aiming for up into the hills above the river and the small town of Orscholz.

The town itself is unremarkable, but a short walk from the town you reach the cliffs high above the river at the point it takes in a giant loop through the hills. Millenia of water flow and geology in action. You can just walk down to one of the viewing platforms, but there you are competing with the foliage for the views. Instead I headed over to the Baumwipfelpfad, a wooden treetop walkway that starts down at ground level and then gradually rises to the level of the tops of the trees before it turns into a stunning six tier tower right on the edge of the cliff. From the top level the views down over the Saarschleife are spectacular, and on a quiet Friday afternoon in mid-October I had them pretty much to myself.

As it had taken some time to get to the Baumwipfelpfad I was one of the last people to head out onto the walkway for the day, but it also meant that they were starting to close up as I headed back down again, but – as I had a bit of a wait until the next bus back to the station – the café was still open for a quick beer.

I caught the bus back down into Mettlach, where the connection worked considerably better having only about 15 minutes to wait for the train back to Saarbrücken. Back in Saarbrücken I hopped on a bus and headed back up to the castle area to take some photos of the city from the battlements at night, before catching another bus back down into town and going in hunt of some dinner.

After dinner I had a little bit of a wander around the town centre, before heading back to my hotel and turning in for the night.