And it rained and it rained for three days and nights. So we just stayed tied up in Lutzelbourg until it had passed. We had a knock on the door one evening and Josiane and Roger introduced themselves as residents and invited us over for a drink at their house further up the valley. They served a very passable Manhattan cocktail and we talked world trips and the Vosges mountains.
On Tuesday we left on a less rainy morning and headed up the Valley of the Zorn to the great inclined boat lift that we had passed down the previous year.
We zoomed up 40m in just over 5 minutes; a journey if it had been by the original 17 locks would have taken 6 hours. It was still drizzling as motored along the summit pound with no locks so we could just the flaps and turn on the windscreen wipers and just putt steadily along until we reached a town with an unpronounceable name – Xouaxange where we stopped for the night with two other English barges. The weather was slowly lifting and next morning we left early before turning off the main canal onto the Canal de la Sarre which was the start of the the journey North. By the afternoon the sun was out and the evening was lovely at our mooing in the middle of nowhere with only foxes for company.
The canal meanders through lovely rolling countryside following the contours of the land to maintain a height about the River Saar into which we eventually descended at the town of Sarreguemines where we stayed the night. It has a lovely restaurant right by the moorings in a lovely old building but alas we ate in.
We motored across the border with Germany the next day and stopped at the capital of the Saar Region called Saarbrucken. We were on the outskirts by a former abattoir in the Saarbrucken Motor Boat Club. They made us very welcome and invited us over for a BBQ that evening. We biked into town along the riverside bike path. Past beer gardens selling Bruch No. 1 beer and sausages in a roll.
The town centre is mainly modern with a few old buildings. On the way back we called in at the old abattoir which the club captain had told us sold the very best meat products and bought some very good value local specialities and some sausages for the BBQ that night. When we got back we did some painting on the hull over a few scratches, and then later on took our sausages over to the club where a lovely wood BBQ was going. While we chatted to club members and drank No. 1 beer, the Club Captain very kindly cooked our sausages.
It is a great feature of Germany that the various motorboat clubs are so welcoming to overseas visitors like us. They genuinely love to open their doors and do whatever they can to make a great stay. And so it was the next day we stayed at the Dillingen Motorboat Club on a glorious day as the weather had really warmed again now (at least until today).
Today we sailed through the highlight of any cruise on the Saar River – the great bend near Mettlach. Over a 10 km stretch the river carves a great 180 degree bend through red sandstone cliffs covered with woods. All along the river the cyclists were busy, the walkers were out, and the beer gardens were doing a great trade.
This is Germany at its very best. Enjoying the outdoors, enjoying some exercise and enjoying superb beer and sausages to the sound of an oompah-pah band.
We are tied up tonight in the heart of the gorge. No roads, no trains just peace and quiet. We are about 1 km away from Mettlach the home of Villeroy and Boch the porcelain manufacturers whom we will visit tomorrow. Then a day’s sailing away we reach the Mosel River and the Mosel wines and beautiful villages nestled among the vineyards.
