SARLORLUX is an area of Germany, France and Luxembourg – and that provides an interesting time for tourists. It is fascinating to see how the countries are coming together, and perhaps highlights how insular we are here in the UK.
Saarbrucken is a good place to start. It is unbelievable that the town had 85% damage and destruction in the last war. The old buildings have been restored and rebuilt, and are really remarkable for it. It is not a big place, the population is around 180,000, and the tourist area concentrated around the old town is easily explored on foot.
From our hotel (the Triller, www.hotel-am-triller.de excellent and thoroughly recommended), it is a short stroll down to the square and the old town hall, the Rathhaus, which faces the castle – unlike any castle you an imagine. It looks more like a government office block from the 19th century, with a strikingly modern glass structure replacing the central part. Underneath it are excavated fortifications to explore, reached from the peculiar modern museum building here.
Nearby is the Ludwigskirche, a Protestant church which sits solidly in an open area surrounded by a palace and civil servant’s houses, all beautifully restored. The huge squat church is similar inside to a typical Church of Scotland one, with the gallery on three sides, and plain decoration. It is also used for concerts, and on my visit they were setting up the strobe lighting for a pop concert that evening.
There is a long bridge over the river and a motorway, connecting the two parts of the town. As you reach the other side, on the left is a magnificent concert hall. It is said locally that after WW1, the French kept control of the area for the iron and steel making. Then in 1935 there was a referendum, and they voted to be returned to Germany. Hitler was so pleased that he built this hall for them.
Continuing onwards through attractive streets you soon reach the market place, an odd straggly shape, with an ornate mercat cross and fountain, and onwards to the incredible new town hall, the Rathaus St. Johann. This was built between 1897 and 1900, complete with a 54 metre high tower that has a remarkable set of bells which sound out twice a day. On the façade are sandstone statues of tradesmen, and a large St George slaying the dragon. St George and the dragon pop up all over the Continent.
Just by the Rathaus is a tram stop. The tram network is so easy to use. Get on a tram and journey along through the streets, stopping frequently, until you come to a large roundabout or road junction, with a railway bridge going over it. After this stop, the tram goes across the road, up a ramp and onto the railway line, to then speed along at 90kph, stopping at the railway stations, until finally crossing the river Saar and running into a large railway station in France, at Sarreguemines. Another place to discover – typically French, good food, historic buildings, and another part of this region that has been passed between Germany and France a few times in the 20th century.
The railway station has a very German grand façade, and faces the massive Palais de Justice. Between these there is a garden with the war memorial in the centre. It struck me quite forcibly that in each place visited, including Luxembourg, there are large war memorials for the dead of the war that is still in living memory, when these countries were being destroyed. Now, they are working together, no frontiers, one organisation for culture and tourism, and one vision for the future. Surely this is what the EU is about.
In the tourist office a very friendly lady provided me with information about Sarreguemines, and was happy to enter "Scotland" as the place where I come from on her statistics. She doesn’t get many people from Scotland, she said! The tram train runs every half hour and so after a pleasant stroll around the town, I took it back to Saarbrucken. No passport or border controls, no sign even of any border at all.
Back at Saarbrucken it was time to visit the steelworks. This may seem an odd holiday thing to do, but you have to see it. Today it is a UNESCO world heritage site, and explains why the area received such a bombing during the war. The site is huge. It is impossible to describe the massive iron and steel pipes, towers, ramps, railway lines, retorts, and sheer size of the works. If you can, look at www.voelklinger-huette.org At the time of my visit there was an exhibition inside, about the Celts. This was a breakthrough in understanding the Celts, who of course invented iron smelting here around 1000 years ago. The large exhibition is just dwarfed by the scale of the buildings. There are guided walks around the works, explaining the operations. Although it ceased production on this site, there are still steel works in the area, including trains of "torpedo" wagons running past which contain liquid molten metal at around 1500 degrees centigrade, taking it from one works to another. You really are overwhelmed by the sheer size of the whole complex.
Returning to Saarbrucken, it was time to catch a bus to Luxembourg. They are considering opening a railway line between the two cities, some time in the future. For now, Luxembourg Railways run 13 buses a day between the two places. On the way, there is the Saar loop, a major natural phenomenon. The wide river forms a very tight loop in a deep valley, and is such a tourist magnet that there is a large car and coach park at the lookout point.
Luxembourg is only around 60 miles from Saarbrucken, and also on the way is Schengen, where the famous agreement was signed doing away with borders in most of central Europe. Schengen is unremarkable, apart from a bridge over the river, with Germany France and Luxembourg all meeting there. It is symbolic of the whole region. Luxembourg is a very successful country, very open to the whole concept of a border free Europe, and a model for Scotland perhaps, but Luxembourg deserves a whole article on its own, and this will follow shortly.
It was very interesting to visit this area. You tend to forget which country you are in. It is not expensive for us, and the quality of the food, hotels, and local wines are exceptional. There is so much to do and see, it is a great destination at any time of the year and any weather. A good web site is www.visitsaarland.co.uk which also explains about the leisure card which gives access cheaply to so many attractions – making it easy for the tourist. It is not so far away from the UK, well worth going to see.
