Mayakafer – Saverne

In the morning, the window of our room provided a view of the clouds lifting and being replaced by much welcomed sunlight.

We left at 10.45 after a relatively sparse breakfast. We had a very quick look at the glass blowing shop up the road but decided it was probably not a good idea to buy artisan crystal souvenirs on a cycling holiday. We also waited about 10 minutes to take photos of the nearby boat-lift (plan incliné de Saint-Louis-Arzviller), but although there were a couple of boats around there didn't seem to be any up-and-down traffic.

After some challenging navigation we were back on the canal path by 11.30 where we were greeted with stunning views of Château de Lutzelbourg.

In the town underneath the castle we found an open bakery. We chose the station platform for a half-hour second breakfast where numerous TGV trains were passing at grande vitesse.

Further we went along the canal, much speedier than yesterday thanks to the downhill. At this point we crossed the border between the Lorraine and Alsace regions. This was our third day on bikes and should have been a rest day, so we only planned to cycle 20km to Saverne today.

We arrived at Saverne about an hour later and stopped for a little snack beside the youth hostel which was housed in the impressive central palace, but obviously closed for the Easter holidays.

Unable to find good accomodation online we headed toward the tourist information in the town centre which was also closed, but showed a list of gîtes on the door. We picked one right next to the canal and checked in just before 3 o'clock. The room had a questionable plastic-bedcover atmosphere and the gîte's owners subjected their guests to an elaborate list of rules and regulations.

We spent the afternoon walking up to Haut Barr castle and enjoyed great views of the northern Vosges hill-range through which we had come and the vast Rhine plains towards Strasbourg which lay ahead of us.

There was a restaurant in the castle at the top, but it wasn't serving food when we were there so we decided to return to the city for dinner. We found a restaurant which was recommended for its tarte flambée and made a reservation. It wasn't open for dinner yet, so we had some more time to look around Saverne's old town.

Back at the restaurant we had some Alsatian tarte flambée which is known well beyond the region. Even the dessert consisted of tarte flambée topped with fromage frais and a Japanese type of lime.