Day Thirty One: Zetting to Sarrebourg: (Year 31: 1998)

October 21, 2017

Flash Back to 1998:

Here we arrive at the end of a phase, when Joshua our youngest, graduates and leaves home for college. Joni Mitchell's the Circle Game beautifully captures the growing up process.

Just as Joni points out that the child, on reaching 20, will have new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty, so will we. And guess what, in due course Joshua will bring us back not one but three grandchildren!

Dodie had one offer to market her brownies through Costco, but she clung to small batch production and declined. She worked long hours and produced a lot, by hand. We started buying packaging wholesale, and generated a lot of empty boxes as people snapped up the product.

Everything in this shop photo was made by Dodie.

Joshua graduated from high school and soon moved to Victoria, closing a phase in all our lives.

Circle Game

Fast Forward to 2017, France:

We were tickled to learn that at the Myosotis in Zetting we had stayed in exactly the same room as Tricia and Ken a month earlier. But of the two tables in the breakfast room, they had sat at the other one. Oh well.

We enjoyed talking with Noelle, the owner. One thing I asked her was how she maintained the glass wall of the shower in such sparkling clean condition. The answer was wiping with vinegar, but each time. That is easy, because after each guest there is naturally a cleaning. At home, you would have to really stay on it, else - soap scum! Noelle's shower fixture was also really nice, It had a giant overhead outlet and a hand spray, both controlled by the volume control side, and then there is the separate temperature control. I have ranted about this before - it's the only logical way to arrange a shower control, but rarely seen in North America.

The shower at Myosotis is the ultimate in logic and function.

Tricia and Ken's vacant table. We wish we could have actually met up with then somewhere.

We asked Noelle if we could prepare two sandwiches from the breakfast stuff, for the road. But she said she had carefully metered out the bread and did not have enough for that. Hmmm, we could have easily done it from what was on our table. Noelle allowed that there was not much food or service to be found ahead on the route, but she felt in Sarralbe we would find stuff.

The path to Sarralbe, and beyond as far as Mittersheim, was not spectacular but still extremely pleasant - with a good canal side surface, and farmscapes beyond. The canal, Canal des Houilleres, was built in the 1860's to serve coal mines at Saarbrucken and industry at Moulouse. It is 75 km long.

Sarralbe actually had two open bakeries, so we thought we were ok for lunch. But when asked if they had or made sandwiches, they replied yes, but of course not on the weekend. Err, sure. They did have some nice looking pastries, including the mother of all eclairs, but you can not live by eclairs alone (am I really writing this? - it's clearly false.)

Look Evee, what would be your translation of this sign?

The Saar Radweg, with a blockhouse that was part of the Maginot Line.

After our misfire at Sarralbe, we made our way to Mittersheim, arriving about 1. This had a Proxi market, but of course it was closed from 12 to 2. Oh, France! So we made out way to the church, just looking to sit on the steps. In front of the church was a school, that had a bench, so we took that. Our total supplies now consisted of two apples and an orange from Saarlouis, plus my surplus cookies, which now were looking pretty good.

As we sat on the bench, a man came out of a house adjoining the school, and told us we could not be there because we were in a school yard. Dodie said to me "You don't speak French", but I said to the guy "Yeah, well it's Saturday and I don't see any children". The guy said no matter, we could not be in the schoolyard. I replied that that was a pretty poor way to receive travellers from Canada. I invited him to go get the mayor to talk to us if he really had a beef, meanwhile we would be eating our apples. With that he slunk back into his lair.

More of the canal and path, on the way to Mittersheim

All we had for lunch supplies in Mittersheim.

Out of Mittersheim we had planned to not be on the canal, but to take a shortcut route, a street called the Rue de Berthelming. We started down this, but it proved unpaved and rough. So we retreated and took to the road, the D43. This had moderate traffic, but was ok. The countryside had rolling hills, and the rain - spitty before - now got serious about it. So we toiled up and down in the rain - par for the course, really.

Along the way was Fenetrange, which bills itself as a medieval city. We did spot an old wall and gate which no doubt led to the castle and church, but in the rain our heads were down and we just wanted to get somewhere.

We finally took a turn and got back on a canal, though I am not sure which one. It did take is straight into Saarebourg. It is so much more happy making to be away from the cars!

Tricia had not been too pleased with the hotel in downtown Sarrebourg, the Soleil Levant. (For the record, that translates as the House of the Rising Sun). So we put ourselves a bit out of town, at the Ibis Styles. These folks foolishly had croissants, coffee, and apples on offer at the reception. They must not receive that many starving cyclists!

Because we had blown though Sarrebourg, looking to get to the Ibis, we did not form an impression of it, except that it seemed unremarkable, and the Soleil Levant looked dull enough to maybe be closed.

Our summary of the Saar bikeway so far is that it offers a great cycling surface, excellent signage, a river or canal to look at, but nothing great, in terms of architecture, food, agriculture, churches, or etc. No matter, we like it!

At the Ibis in Sarrebourg. The sign says that sheep are the lawnmower of choice for professionals.

The actual sheep do not seem to be working too hard!

Addendum: Grampies go upscale

The Ibis we are in is somewhere out of town, surrounded by parkland. So the only food choice is the hotel restaurant, which it turns out (surprise) is a French restaurant. Avoiding the foie gras and unfamiliar fish choices, we went for veal (cooked, they said, 36 hours) and a ballotine of chicken. Ballotine is chicken breast or thigh pounded thin and filled with something, in this case seemingly more chicken. At first I was lamenting the absence of good old schnitzel on the menu, but both these dishes turned out to be extremely well prepared and very yummy. 20 euros each -- hmmm. We have gone upscale from our lunch of apples and cookies.

Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 991 km (615 miles)

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