We had another early start, at around 8.15 am. The first part of our journey was not on any official bike path, but just making our way between the small towns – Shalbach, Veckersviller, Weyer, Wolfskirchen, Diedendorf. The countryside was gently undulating and it was a very pleasant ride. At one point we took a short cut along a farm road between Veckersviller and Weyer. Jenny thought maybe we should turn back but Kris thought they would connect, and he was right.

     

We also saw an interesting ruined 16^th century castle at Diedendorf, all abandoned.

     

From there we reconnected to the Eurovelo 5 alongside the Canal des Houilleres de la Sarre. This canal was a bit more muddy looking and slow flowing than yesterday’s canal. The bike route was very good and easy, being sealed for most of the way and we made good progress.

We also saw a few tourist boats and passed a number of locks, but not as many as yesterday. The first big town was Sarreguemines. It was after midday so we stopped to buy some ice cream and orange juice at the supermarket. It was hot, but not nearly as unpleasant as on previous days so we felt we could carry on. The temperature must have been in the low 30’s.

Our final destination, Saarbrucken was only about 18km away.

Here is some street art on the canal on the ride into the town:

     

The Saarbrucken tourist information were efficient and helpful in finding accommodation in a cheap hotel. We had time to ride around and look at the town, which is quite large with a wonderful wide pedestrian walkway at the centre.

         

We found a pub where we could sit outside and drink a beer (Weise Heffe on tap, our favourite).

We also ate some food from the street stalls for our supper.

Unfortunately the hotel room turned out to be very hot, with the late afternoon sun shining directly into our room. The wifi signal in the room was also weak so we ended up sitting in the (cooler) stairwell to access the internet. I also had some technical problems with my computer connecting to the internet which Kris fixed, so the day was not without its frustrations.