Day 22: Bitche to Saarlouis

Bye Bitche!

I am sweating quite profusely as I write this post. It was a rather hot day as I toed the French – German border, and the evening in Saarlouis is offering little respite. Not to mention my room is basically a sweat lodge with no air conditioning.

Anyways, about the ride and such.

Since I am somewhat out of the way of any Eurovelo bike routes at the moment, I made a strategic move this morning to follow the Google maps suggestion for DRIVING. No more of the unreliable, indirect, and questionable cycling paths today. I didn’t have the patience for it. The roads were generally fine and I didn’t have any crusty gravel roads running through axe murderer infested forests.

The most strenuous part of the day was a massive and lengthy climb out of Bitche. Really, should I have expected anything less? A real pain in the ass getting there and leaving – Bitche, indeed. Okay – I swear that’s the last you will hear of the Bitche puns.

Once I reached Sarreguemines, where I stopped for coffee, I switched onto the bike path along the river. This had a similar aesthetic to the Eurovelo 15 and 5 routes along canals, except I was riding beside the Saar River. On one side France and on the other Germany!

As I was nearing and later leaving Saarbrücken, I was keeping my eyes peeled for an inviting bench for my lunch break. I kept vetoing the possibilities at hand in hopes for something more picturesque. When I finally realized that I had passed through the main town area I opted to simply stop and sit on the ledge of the river embankment. Well, I guess the view was nice at least.

I arrived in Saarlouis relatively unscathed and found my hotel. Immediately, it was apparent that the town was at least more populated than Bitche. There are plenty of restaurants and bars with outdoor tables and people spilling out to enjoy the afternoon sun. There also appeared to be some shopping.

After settling in I headed out to see what Saarlouis had to offer. I found that there wasn’t much else than initially caught my eye.

One of Saarlouis’ greatest treasures: Big Parking lot

Later, when I was heading to get some dinner, I realized I had missed a nicer section of the town where the 17th century fortress was, and the where the Alte Saar (some body of water) flows through town. There was a cool beer garden on the island in the middle of it and a band warming up for a concert on the other side.

Beer garden in there… was closed though.

When I picked a place to dine I spoke to the host and he said that there was only space inside. I looked around noting that about half the outdoor tables were free. “Really?” I said. “The rest are all reserved,” was his reply. Yea, okay sure.

No matter. I walked two restaurants over and stared daggers at the previous establishment’s host while I sat there. I honestly don’t know if they were all reserved or if they just prefer to keep outside tables free for larger groups. Either way, I gladly took my business elsewhere. Then I had schnitzel.