Sarrebourg - photos added - A Miraculous Tour Around France and Germany

September 7, 2017

Sarrebourg - photos added

It was a short ride from Ecluse 34 to Saverne this morning. Saverne is an attractive town set on the canal, a market was going on so we were able to buy fruit and bread. After that we seemed to be straight into heavily wooded mountains following a narrow track along the canal. We were delighted to arrive in the little village of Lutzelbourg which had an outstanding Boulangerie, Cocolaterie, Patiserie, cafe de tee. The quality of the goods offered was outstanding and it is rather surprising that Ken and I just limited ourselves to a large cup of coffee, but our eyes did a lot of tasting. Steve if you come this way you must call in the place is right up to your standard.

We continued on to visit Le Plan Incline. We had been following the Marne au Rhin Canal, built between 1838 and 1853. The main problem it needed to solve was to pass the Vosges Mountains at their lowest point. This was initially solved with a ladder of 17locks over 4km which raised the boats about 45m. This was very tiring and expensive and just passing these locks took a whole day. The solution opened in 1969 was the construction of Le Plan Incline. The system works basically by lifting or lowering a caisson containing a boat along a slope using a counterbalance weight. Each journey takes about 4minutes and is fascinating to watch, it is said to be the most visited tourist destination in Lorriane. Having done this we turned back and went on a track following the old now empty canal with its 17 locks. What a fascinating path this was. The canal although completely empty are in excellent order and you can see the way the stone work was used to build it - my mind boggles at the massive amount of work involved.

After this things returned to pleasant normality. We were pleased that the people in the hotel let us in as they had said there check in time was 6pm and they have even agreed that we can have breakfast at 7am. We then following Davids advice visited Audrey in the Office de Tourism and got excellent advice and maps for our onward journey. Tomorrow we will go to Zetting which is just a few k before Sarreguemines where we believe the Sarr Radweg starts. It is further than Sarre Union but the look of the available hotels in Sarre Union doesnt appeal to me

THe container carrying the boat begins to move

This is what came down a tourist boat taking people up and down the Plan Incline

Some detail of how canals were constructed

Back to the functioning canal. It disappears into a tunnel and we have to go over

These little ponies pulled a cart with their people in to a restaurant - at least they got some lush grass

Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 1,759 km (1,092 miles)

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