We started at St Johanner Markt in central Saarbrücken at just after 1 pm. The cycle path follows the river Saar towards the French border. Here we crossed into France after less than half an hour's ride.
The cycle path continues on the French side of the river which forms the border to Germany up to Sarreguemines.
A little further along we reached a lock at Sarreinsming where we had a 30 minute break after about 2½h of cycling.
At this point the Canal des Houllieres de la Sarre rejoins the river, and from here our cycle path ran alongside the canal with the river on the other side.
Both the canal and the river meander in large bends in this region, so it takes a lot of cycling to cover what looks like a moderate distance on the map. Two hours after our first break we arrived at Sarrealbe at the junctions of the rivers Sarre and Albe. Here we intended to have a late lunch.
We quickly discovered that this was going to be much more difficult than we had anticipated for two reasons. Firstly, it was Good Friday and the French appear to be surprisingly strict about observing their holidays, so much so that even the restaurants remain closed. Secondly, the French are equally strict about observing meal times, so it can be very difficult to obtain food at 5 o'clock between the regular lunch and dinner times, like we did.
We found a café that was open, but »café« turned out to be the French word for »bar« and besides having a fairly inhospitable atmosphere served only beer, but no coffee.
Eventually we worked out that our only choice was the kebab and pizza shop we had first spotted on our way into town, so we ordered pizza and tea in order to warm ourselves and stayed for a little over an hour.
Having regained some strength and warmth, we asked at another café (i.e. bar) whether there was any hostel or hotel in Sarrealbe for us to stay. We were told the nearest one was in Keskastel about 5km further along the road. The cycle path did not run past any larger villages or towns for the next 20km, so we decided to leave Sarrealbe along the road to Keskastel. Cycling along the road was decidedly less fun than the traffic-free cycle path we had been using before. It was also beginning to get dark and some rain was settling in, so we were very glad to reach the hostel we had been recommended some 20 minutes later.
Unfortunately, it was booked out and there was no alternative in Keskastel. Instead, we were told that there were a couple of hotels as well as some holiday homes in Sarre-Union, another 4km along the same road. Left with no choice we kept riding for another 20 minutes until we passed a motel on the road into Sarre-Union. This place really didn't appeal to us, so we decided to have a look at the other hotels and the holiday homes that we had been told about.
We cycled up the hill towards the town centre and found another hotel which was closed, presumably for the Easter holidays. Just around the corner was the holiday flat which we could have rented, but decided it was really too big for us and a little too costly for just one night.
In the end, we rode back down to the motel that we had passed on our way in and rented a room at 7.30pm. Including the unforseen extension while looking for accomodation at the end we had cycled 53km today.
The room was a little cheesy and we didn't feel like we quite got our money's worth, but at least we had somewhere to dry off and get warm.
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