We did not plan on stopping in Saarbrücken. Our original next stop was Strasbourg, but somewhere along the way we realised we had forgotten to be proper tourists and never picked up a magnet in Aachen. Saarbrücken sounded like a nice, quaint town from what we read, so we thought a quick stop to fix that would not hurt.

It turned out to be bigger than we expected, more of a city than a town, and we ended up staying about three hours, completely unplanned.

A quiet corner of Saarbrücken

One of the little shops we wandered past

A Little Bit Of History

Saarbrücken’s Baroque centre, the Ludwigskirche and Ludwigsplatz square, is basically the work of two men: an 18th century prince called William Henry of Nassau-Saarbrücken and his court architect, Friedrich Joachim Stengel. Over about three decades, the pair rebuilt a fairly ordinary medieval town into a proper princely showpiece, palaces, churches and squares included. The Ludwigskirche itself is considered one of the finest Protestant Baroque churches in Germany, on par with Dresden’s Frauenkirche, and it is important enough to have appeared on a German commemorative coin in 2009.

That French flavour you can feel walking around is not a coincidence either. Saarbrücken has changed hands and nationality repeatedly over the centuries, and in the 20th century alone it was cut off from Germany twice, once after the First World War, then again as a French protectorate after the Second. It only rejoined Germany for good in 1957, after a referendum, an event locals still call the “Little Reunification.”

One more thing worth knowing if you are curious about the quieter corners of the city: right outside Saarbrücken Castle is a memorial with a genuinely thoughtful idea behind it, called the Platz des Unsichtbaren Mahnmals (the Place of the Invisible Memorial). It honours the Jewish cemeteries lost under Nazi rule, and instead of a statue or plaque, the names were quietly engraved on the undersides of paving stones and set face down into the ground, so the memorial itself is invisible unless you know it is there. It is a small, easy to miss detail in a square you might otherwise just walk straight through.

A Market We Did Not Expect

We had no idea, but German markets were on, right at the start of July, and we loved the vibe. Stumbling onto local activities or events completely unplanned is one of our favourite parts of travelling, and this one did not disappoint. We ate a cheesy wurst from one of the stalls, which was genuinely really good, and spent a while enjoying the live music and browsing the craft stalls.

Cookie, keeping a close eye on the wurst

The markets, in full swing

Would I Recommend Saarbrücken? A nice find, thanks to the markets.

The markets really made the day. As a city on its own, Saarbrücken is nice enough, the Ludwigskirche is lovely and the houses have that proper German look to them, but it did not knock me off my feet. If we had not had the time, I would not have been terribly upset about skipping the city itself, though I would still miss the markets. If you do have the time, it is worth adding as a quick stop.