29 - Are you serious!?!

Wednesday 22^nd June

Yes - it did get to 29 today - when we saw the weather forecast yesterday we had jumpers on and it was trying to rain. 

Well it hasn’t been an uninteresting couple of days.

Our plan yesterday was just a drive to Sarrebourg, where we are staying in a convent, with a brief stop in Toul along the way. Of course, the main feature in Toul is the cathedral dating back to the 10^th century, and which took 300 years to build – another in the flamboyant gothic style. The organ in the cathedral has 4800 pipes – Rob likes the organs. We did a short walk around the town as it drizzled but apart from a few renaissance style doors there wasn’t a lot to see. Parts of the old town walls are still to be seen and we tried to drive around and get a few photos, but the map was a little unclear – perhaps would have been better on foot.

The cathedral in Toul

I guess that is 4800 pipes we can see up there.

The centre of this town was really pretty - Toul was bombed to bits during WWII and it allowed them to widen the centre 'square' - done in the 1950s I think.

Part of the old walls of Toul and one of the city gates.

We have been in France 5 weeks now and were here for over 2 months last time, and have just found out about ‘blue’ parking areas. We have seen cars with ‘dials’ in their windows where they are parking in 1 ½ hr zones and have never been too sure what it all means. Found out today you can buy the dials (2euro) and you just put them in your window with the arrival time and you can park for 1 ½ hrs. We bought one and now are waiting for a chance to use it. How simple is that? And you can use them all over Europe.

We arrived in Sarrebourg and headed for the tourist information centre, which was just around the corner from the Laundromat. We found out that yesterday was the Fete de la Musique (World Music Day apparently) and all over France villages were celebrating with musical performances in the streets and it was all free. After the washing and checking in to the convent we headed back into town and enjoyed the musical performances. Lots of food and drink stalls so we enjoyed some bbq’d ribs sitting in one of the courtyards.

One of the bands we saw playing - the conductor of this band had them marching and prancing all up and down the streets. There were all ages in the band.

A shot of the crowd up the main street.

The convent – I think it has had a few improvements since its original tenants. We have our own bathroom at least but there are no blinds on the windows and at this time of the year with the sun setting at 10 and up again at 5, we had a lousy night’s sleep. No TV so books are the go. We have been out all day today so hopefully tired enough to get a good sleep.

First stop today was Le Plan Incline de Saint-Louis Arzviller. This is a ‘funicular’ for boats that replaces 17 locks in a 3.8km stretch of the Marne-Rhine Canal. Rob thinks this is the one he was actually aiming to see rather than the other group of locks we saw earlier in the trip. This ‘elevator’ takes the boats up/down 45 metres in one go rather than passing through all the old locks. Time saving for sure. We did a tour of the facility (nothing in English so a bit ho-hum – we are so close to the German border here and there was a busload of Germans on the boat so the tour was in French and German) and then got to go down the elevator in a tour boat, a short cruise down to the next lock, then back up the elevator.  Quite an interesting concept

Down they go

Just a few waiting for a lift.

From there we headed to another out of the way village called Dabo (where we had a lovely lunch at the local relais) and on to a church perched on a rock – 647m. Some great views over the Voges mountains. Lots of pine plantations to be seen close in but some great views beyond the mountains to see flatter countryside and little villages scattered everywhere.

The church on the rock at Dabo - a long walk up for a service.

We took a different route back to Sarrebourg and along the way found an old castle in ruins.

Looking from the castle down on the town of Lutzelbourg.

And finally back in Sarrebourg we visited the Chappelle des Cordeliers where there is a huge stained glass window by Marc Chagall – we saw his windows in Reims cathedral and last trip we saw where he was buried and a mosaic done by him.

This was the stained glass done by Marc Chagall - we had no idea it was here before arriving in the town.

This was a tapestry - based on the work of Marc Chagall.

A lovely Chinese meal for tea and now we are back in our convent and ready for bed. Tomorrow we head northwards towards Spa and more car stuff.