Chapter Eight - the Eighth Week

Monday 26th October

So, this is the first full week of my parents' visit to Germany. So what did we decide to do to celebrate the fact that they will be enjoying the full German Experience...we went to France (again). I like Germany, really I do, but I genuinely feel it would be negligent to allow myself not to take advantage of the proximity of the borders with the former Saar protecting power.

Today we took the car to Metz. (Those of you astute readers who have been paying attention to my blog entries will know I've already been there once before with the staff of my Gesamtschule). Now, as I've mentioned previously the French Customs Officers (Douanes) are a little seen species of French officials...but not at the border crossing of the motorway between Saarbruecken and France. These seem to be the less shy type of Douanes. Why do I say this? Well, for the second time in as many visits to Metz I was stopped by the Douanes and asked some questions!

I semi-expected it this time, I saw the look in her eyes when she saw a British car driving towards her...she wanted some English practice, which being the Europhile I was, I declined to give her and answered her in French. This seemed to surprise her, and we were allowed on our way with little fuss this time. I'm beginning to think I may simply have one of those faces, which the French dislike!

So, on arrival in Metz, we encountered the first hurdle, which we'd not had with the coach trip...parking! There was parking available, and finding a space was a little challenging, but not too stressful...the problem was once we'd found the space, it was remembering where we'd left the car! To solve this problem we took the GPS out of the car, saved its location, and planned to use that to get us back!

After leaving the car where it was we headed for a coffee, and then we walked around the cathedral. I still found it as awe-inspiring as the last time I went there. (You can read more about it in the Thursday part of this entry)

After visiting the Cathedral again, we headed into the tourist information office, where they gave us a town map, on which, using the GPS, we marked the location of the car! Following this little breakthrough, we decided to embark on a walking tour of the town, for which I was the guide! (I had, unfortunately, forgotten my red umbrella and bad dress sense, but apart from that I was like any other town guide!) . We had a look at some gardens in front of the barracks, then we walked down by the canalised part of the Moselle (Mosel for the Germanists!) and across the little Paris-esque island in the middle of the River, before heading back up to the Cathedral square, and in turn the car.

We thought it might be nice to have lunch in the botanical gardens in Metz, which shouldn't have been a problem; we knew where they were, we knew where we were and we've got a pretty reliable GPS system...hmm, no quite as easy as it first seemed. Why so? Well, Metz is quite a small city, with quite a lot of people living there, so the buildings are quite tall - the GPS struggles to get a signal surrounded by tall inanimate objects (remember it was originally US Defence technology, if that helps explain it!), but nevertheless, with a certain amount of what I would call intuition and logical thinking (others would probably call it guesswork) we made it to the gardens, where we had lunch and wandered round, before heading home via the E. Leclerc over the border from Saarbruecken to do some shopping for the week.

After dinner, we wandered down into town again for a couple of drinks before enjoying the bus ride home! Long Live Saarbahn!

As a fore-warning, we did do quite a lot this week, so there's a chance this could become a long blog entry...so get yourself sitting comfortably!

Tuesday 27th October

This morning we did my favourite thing in the whole world. (As with the bit from last week, that would also have been written in the sarcasm font if I had one). We went shopping in Saarbruecken. Now, I, being a bloke, am not a fan of shopping, I go shopping when I need stuff - like food for example...I don't traipse around the supermarkets because it's fun, rather because I need something! But anyway, that's what we did...we went round some of the smaller shops, had a look around Saturn, then Dad wanted to rekindle his younger years (so, we tried to go somewhere that was Sepia coloured) so we went to C&A, which he was disappointed with, so we didn't stay too long!

After our morning of fun and games, we headed over to a small town called Voelklingen. At Voelklingen, there is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city of Bath is a World Heritage Site, the Cathedral in Cologne is also a World Heritage Site, as is Stonehenge...so what delights awaited us in Voelklingen - an old steelworks!

The main reason for going this afternoon was that it's free on a Tuesday afternoon - instead of €10 each...this struck me as quite a good deal! It was quite an interesting afternoon - it was interesting seeing how much it had both deteriorated (i.e. become very rusty, and in some places rotted through), and in other places it had flourished - there is a part of the works, which the owners have left as a wilderness to see what develops. It was a throughly enjoyable afternoon - perhaps if I'd understood the steel making process in a little more detail (i.e. if I'd listened a bit more to the details explained to me at GCSE science), I would have got even more from it.

That was about it for Tuesday, with another European journey planned for the Wednesday!

Wednesday 28th October


So, today we were off to Luxembourg (or as us Germanists spell it - Luxemburg). We decided it would be easier to take the bus from Saarbruecken to Luxembourg - that we wouldn't have to find somewhere to park there, which I had heard was truly an horrendous experience bound to cause stress to even the most placid people! At €14 each, it wasn't too unreasonable either! The coach took about an hour and a quarter to get there, and was driven by someone who looked like he was on his holidays from school. (Maybe I am getting old after all!).

The journey was pleasant enough (most of it was on motorway, so there wasn't a huge amount of interesting things to report from the journey itself!). We alighted from the bus in the heart of the old town, as this was where I'd been told it was nicest in Luxembourg. The first thing we did was get coffee...well it seemed to make sense! After that, we headed down to one of the bridges over the gorge between the new and old town. We took some photos from there, and then we headed over to the Cathedral to have a look inside. On the way to the Cathedral we passed the CitySightseeing booth, and we thought it would be worthwhile having a tour to make sure that if we hadn't the opportunity walk around everything, we should probably have seen it from the tour. We opted for the Noddy Train tour, because it was cheaper, and less likely to get caught up in the traffic jams, which seemed so prevalent in Luxembourg.

The Noddy Train ride was as uncomfortable as ever, and my spine is still recovering (everytime I sit down it sounds like someone playing a xylophone down my back!). It took us down into the gorge, from where you could see the old fortifications clearly and it told us a little of the history of the city, sorry Duchy. The only problem was that the majority of the roads were cobbled, and my teeth were chattering as we were going along!

We also looked at the Cathedral, which was nice...still not as nice as Metz, in my opinion, but nice nevertheless. We then did another unofficial walking tour of Luxembourg (i.e. I held the map and chose where we went!). We saw quite a lot there, which I shall attempt to list now! We saw: the Finance Ministry, the Royal Palace, the Parliament Building, the Red Bridge (originally called because it's a bridge, and it's red...I don't know how they do it!), the Municipal (or should I say National, because in Luxembourg they're pretty much the same thing!) Library, the National Bank, the Municipal Park, and Old People's Home (that looked more like a palace to me!), and the Town Hall amongst other things.

Then we caught the bus back to Saarbruecken, before having a meal out in the pub, which I have come to call my 'local'; despite it being nearly 800 miles from my actual home! The food there reminds me of good quality, cheap, pub grub - which I'm a big fan of!

Thursday 29th October

Another day out on public transport today. But, today, at least, we stayed in Germany! We went to Trier on the train. We visited many of the same places as we visited last time I went there with some of the other assistants. You can read about those experiences here if you haven't already! Basically, to summarise, we visited the following places there: The Porta Nigra, the Cathedral, the Electoral Palace (Trier's answer to Versailles), Woolworth (I know, I know, but it was for old times sake!), down by the Mosel(le), then back up past some churches before catching the train back to Saarbruecken. Again, it was a pleasant day, and the weather seemed to hold out, which was nice too!

After dinner, we headed down into town for a couple of drinks at my 'local', before heading back and preparing for a nice day in and around Saarbruecken!

Friday 30th October


Today, we stayed in the environs of Saarbruecken; in the morning we walked out to the pub at Guedingen and had a coffee or two before walking back to Brebach, from where we caught the tram back to town. We did a little more shopping (can you imagine the amount of joy I felt at that prospect?) in Saarbruecken, and I got the new edition of the bus timetable, to find that in fact my local bus service is staying the same as it has been since I've been - still it might work out to be worth it in the long run!

For lunch, I took the old folks out to what we in Saarbruecken affectionately know as the DFG. (Deutsch-Franzoesischer Garten (German-French Garden), which, funnily enough, lies on the border of France & Germany. (Some more outside of the box thinking going on there!) We had lunch there, and had a wander round; it was nice, but with it being the end of autumn, the majority of the plants have gone over, and it was looking slightly folorn. I'm sure it'll look fantastic in the spring/summer though! So, I'll definitely be heading back there! The garden itself came about, basically, because after the war, the people on either side of the border (who had for the last 5 years or so been bitter enemies) decided that they would plant a garden together, and as such the garden is managed by both the Saarbruecken municipal works and the Lorraine authorities.

After lunch, we took another exciting trip out to E.Leclerc supermarket over the border, which was OK. I realise I may be appearing as a little contradictory over my opinion on shopping, so let me briefly clarify; I dislike "going shopping" for the sake of having something to do - I think there are better ways to fill your time like redecorating and then watching it dry, but I don't mind shopping when I need to get something - like food!

Tonight, after dinner, I had my hair cut, and then we had a relatively early night, because we were up early the next morning to head to Koblenz.

Saturday 31st October


For our Hallowe'en day out we decided to travel to Koblenz on the train. The journey itself takes just a little over two and a half hours, but it's worth it. Between Trier and Koblenz the views over the river are very nice - rather like a picture postcard of how I imagine Germany to be! It features the railway running directly next to the river, with steep hills on both sides, completely full of vines - exactly how they harvest them I'm not sure! Oh, I forgot to mention that we took a double decker train, and because the novelty will never wear off, we sat upstairs.

When we got to Koblenz, we had a coffee...this, I ought to add, is pretty standard procedure for us - when we arrive somewhere, it's nice to sit down and decide what we want to see over a coffee! We then headed to the Toursit Information Centre; conveniently hidden next to a Sparkasse. I also checked the T&Cs of the ticket, which meant we could use buses to get around the city - so rather than walk to the Old Town, and the confluence (join) of the Rhein and Mosel, we took the bus, which saved us about 30 minutes or so!

The joining of the two rivers is marked by a statue of a bloke on his horse; not John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but Kaiser Wilhelm I. The statue is huge, and looks out over what is known as Deutsches Eck (German Corner). From there we did the usual...I took the map, and we had a nose around the city. It was a nice city, with many very nice buildings in the old town, and it was obviously a town where a lot has historically taken place, but the tourist map didn't really provide much information. Luckily, I had consulted Wikipedia the night before, so I was up on some of the details! So, after much walking, much photography, and much coffee, it was time to return to Saarbruecken.

The train I'd planned to take should have been straight through, however because of some sort of engineering works, the train we were on was terminated at a town called Merzig, from where we had to change to the stopping service, running about half an hour later. So, that was just enough time to head to the station bar, and have a glass of the local beer.

To illustrate the difference between the RE (Regional Express) trains, and the RB (Regional Bahn - stopping) services one only needs to look at the number of stops they make between Merzig and Saarbruecken. The RE has 3 stops until Saarbruecken, and the RB has about 10. However, because the German railways are run in a more efficient way, the trains stopped, normally, for less than 45 seconds at each of the stations - none of this doors will be locked 40 seconds before departure rubbish over here!

So, after returning to Saarbruecken about 30 minutes later than originally planned, we headed to the usual place and had a nice dinner out.

Sunday 1st November


Today is the last day of my parent's visit here. I'd left today pretty much blank in the itinerary to go to a few places I thought were worth a look, but not worth a whole day! So, to start the day we headed up to the University's Botanical Garden, which was nice, but quite disappointing - less of a botanical garden as one might imagine it to be (a smaller version of Kew), more an open space with some trees dotted around!

So, not to be put off, we headed off to Ottweiler, again a place I'd been before, where not a huge amount goes on; especially on a Sunday! Still, it was a nice stroll, and we had lunch there before heading off to St. Wendel, which is a slightly bigger town, but still as busy as Ottweiler! There's a nice church there, but that's about it really! After St. Wendel we took to Illingen, which is the only place I can honestly say I've seen chalk for sale! We had a coffee here, and a quick stroll around what is pretty much a ghost town on Sunday!

We then came home, relatively early, so that Mum & Dad could pack and load the car for their departure in the morning. Additionally, my landlady had invited us out for dinner at a restaurant just over the border in France, which is like the Ritz of Saarbruecken; not as posh, and more rurally French, not even the best food in the area, but it is the place to be seen if you weild power or money, or want to climb the greasy pole of influence. Another pleasant evening was had by all, with me acting as an interpreter between my landlady and my parents, after having consumed a couple of alcoholic beverages!

So, in summary, a very interesting week, albeit slightly tiring. It was, obviously, lovely to see Mum & Dad again, and to be able to take them around the place where I've found myself!