March 15th, 2002	The Saar River from Klause Kastel
Merzig, Mettlach, Saarburg, Trier, Völklingen

Merzig

This past weekend (actually it was the weekend of 15 March) we indulged ourselves and took a long weekend to explore an area of Germany that we had not yet encountered...the area along the Saar River. So, Friday morning we packed our car and picked up Helen, my officemate at work, for our excursion northwest. First stop was Merzig, the town which we would serve as our base. I hate to admit it but this trip originated for the purpose of visiting Mettlach, home to Villeroy & Boch china, and replacing our broken everyday dishes. (At present count, we could only have 5 people for supper since all we had left were 5 dinner plates!)

Villeroy & Boch started in 1748 in the small village of Audun-le-Tiche in the Duchy of Lorraine by the iron founder Francios Boch. He began manufacturing simple ceramic tableware but in excellent quality. A little later (1791) businessman Nicolas Villeroy set up an earthenware factory in the town now called Wallerfangen on the Saar River. He printed tableware using cooper-plating, which was a step forward for cost-effective serial printing. Meanwhile Boch purchased the former Benedictine abbey in Mettlach. In these Baroque buildings, he set up a mechanized system for producing tableware. In 1836 in order to survive on the European market, Villeroy and Boch merged their businesses, calling it, of course, Villeroy & Boch. Today, the company has three divisions: tiles, sanitary wares, and tableware & crystal.

Feste Saarburg

Saarburg

Unfortunately, all we saw in Mettlach on Friday was the inside of the outlet stores but we would change that Saturday! After our little stop at Mettlach to help the economy and to see how much china we could stuff into our trunk, we were ready to see part of the area. Our next appointment was in Saarburg, the small Venice of Germany. This little town turned out to be very charming with its small, winding alleys. We came there to visit its bell pouring factory but were enchanted by its charm. 1000 years ago a fortress, Feste Saarburg, loomed above what is now Saarburg, which received its town status in 1291. The fortress was built in 964 by Duke Siegfried of Luxembourg. It was 137 meters long and about 50 meters wide with a high keep and one of the most immense towers of the Middle Ages. The well was said to reach 60 meters deep. After its destruction in the 16-17th centuries, it quickly fell into decay during the 18th century; however, the Bergfried (tower) was never destroyed. Naturally Rick and I climbed up the 107 steps to get a view of the city below.

But I am jumping ahead of myself. The first thing we did in Saarburg was to visit the Glockengießerei (bell foundry). Since 1770 the pouring of bells has been conducted at Glockengießerei Mabilion, which has been in the Mabilion family since the 1500s. We were lucky enough to join a tour of children going through the foundry. Our tour was led by one of the Mabilion family members and she knew her stuff. The kids, as well as us, were mesmerized. Originally the bell makers moved from church to church whenever a bell was needed since it was easier to pour a bell on location than to move it from a foundry. Finally, one of the Mabilion family, originally from the Loire region, decided that Saarburg just was too nice to leave so he set up a bell foundry there. (Too much good food, wine, and loam for clay.) The foundry was located outside of the city wall, far enough away so that the fiery ovens would not endanger the town. Presently, only six families make bells in Germany and, of those, only 1 makes bronze bells - the Mabilions.

	used clappers

The bells themselves are generally about 2 tons in weight, but the Mabilions have made one 5 tons. (The largest hanging bell is 24 tons in Köln, affectionately called the "fat Peter".) When a bell rings, it has 14 tones. Interestingly enough the Mabilion bell maker is considered a maker of a musical instrument! The bells are made of bronze (copper and tin) with an iron clapper which normally needs to be replaced from wear every 80 years.

preparing the kernal	clay mixer

To make a bell, first a clay bell form is made. The clay itself is pretty amazing....to make it the correct consistency, the Mabilions use a mixture of clay with horse manure! But the manure must be from horses who have been eating oats. This combination results in a kind of fermentation and rises much like yeast in dough! But that isn't it. A final secret ingredient is fine calf hairs. Together all this was mixed with a gigantic mixer to make the clay needed to make the bell form (the kernel)

Parts of making the bell mould. The final assembly is in the foreground.

When pouring the bells, there are three layers: the kernel, spacer, and the outer coat. The kernel forms the inner side of the bell. The spacer is effectively where the melted bronze is poured. All parts of the bell must be included in this space, such as the crown on top and any engraving on the bell. The outer coat forms the outside of the bell. Needless to say, the clay bell forms are only used once! The three layers are assembled in the bottom of a pit and once completed, are covered with soil. The hot metal is poured through a pipe to fill the buried form. The soil acts as insulation so that the metal gradually cools and does not crack.

The metal is heated in special flame furnaces. The large chimney draws the air over the top of the metal and not underneath it. It takes about 7 hours to melt 4 tons of metal and only 1-3 minutes to pour! Before pouring, the bell makers say a brief prayer to St. Joseph, patron saint of handworkers, and begin pouring. It takes several men to make sure that the flow of the metal is consistent. It is always a surprise to see how the bells turn out when they are unearthed. The bell foundry also makes the louvers that you see protecting the bell in the bell tower. Their purpose is to let the sound out but not birds or weather in! Of course, we could not resist and bought a small bell as a keepsake. It has a lovely sound and will be a nice reminder of our trip.

Saarburg and the river Leukbach

 We still had some daylight left so we walked around Saarburg. Running through the town is the small river Leukbach. It was redirected to its current location in the 12-13th century to gain additional land and also to provide the town with enough water in case of siege. The Leukbach flows through the town and drops down 18 meters, creating an impressive waterfall. Since 1657, a mill has stood at the top of the falls and later used the falling water to turn a turbine to generate energy. (The mill houses one of the oldest functioning turbines in Germany.) At the bottom of the waterfall is the Hackenberger Mill which also originated in the 16th century. The mill has three water wheels.

decoration on a slate roof	St. Laruentius Kirche

The houses in town are quite charming - half timbered houses with slate roofs. And since we had not seen a church all day, we naturally had to go in the St. Laruentius Kirche (St. Lorenz). In the 11 century, a small chapel was erected on this spot for readings. In 1370, the chapel received the right to be able to have baptisms, marriages, and masses in it. The chapel was continually added to until it is the present form today. We were lucky to be able to sneak inside before mass began. Inside it was very simple with Gothic arches and a flat wooden roof.

Well, it was getting time to think about food so we followed the small brook down to where it joins the Saar River. That pretty much put us near the Mabilion foundry and near that was the Sektkellerei Hausen-Mabilon (champagne cellar). The small restaurant nearby looked very inviting - it had only 5 tables and was very intimate. Of course, we had to try the house champagne! As we were waiting for our food, a white cat strolled through the restaurant, begging for attention. Now if it had been one of our cats, she would have been on the table checking out the food! It was a delightful way to end our first day in Saarland.

Mettlach

Saturday morning we planned on spending the day in Trier but first had to make an unscheduled stop in Mettlach to pick up yet another piece of china. (Yes, if only we had stopped at one!) Rick thought we needed another serving bowl and we ended up with a bit more. Since we arrived before the shops opened, we had a chance to look around Mettlach a bit.

Mettlach is a small town with 3,359 inhabitants and was founded in 675 by the Frankish Great Liutwin, who later became the archbishop of Trier. One of the most attractive factory buildings for Villeroy & Boch is housed in an old Benedictine abbey. The monastery in Mettlach was originally grounded by Luitwin in the last quarter of the 7th century. In 1728 Abbot Ferdinand de Koeler gave the builder Christian Kretzschmar the task of creating new monastery buildings in Baroque style. The monastery existed until the French Revolution in 1794 and was famous for its monastery school in which art and science were taught. The former monastery buildings were declared property of the state and finally in 1809, the buildings became the possession of the Boch family, who used them for their manufacturing tableware.

Alter Turm

Behind the old Benedictine monastery is a small park in which the old meets the new. First, the old. Between 987 and 994 the Abbot Liofin built a Marienkirche (church dedicated to Mary). You can still see the Alter Turm (Old tower), which is not only the oldest remaining monastery building but also the oldest upright standing sacred building in Saarland. The Alter Turm is a relatively small church with an octagonal foundation. The side with the entrance has an arched opening and the other seven sides have trapezoidal niches, in which Gothic windows were added. At one point the small staircase tower collapsed, but Eugen von Boch had it rebuilt and with that the characteristic tentlike roof.

Living Planet Square

Quite in contrast to this piece of history is the Living Planet Square designed by Andre Heller. This consists of a Pavilion, the Earth Spirit, and the World Map of Life which is mounted on 6 walls. The World Map was created by Stefan Szczesny, together with ceramic tile expert Peter Thumm. It is the world's largest ceramic puzzle with over 137,000 pieces placed in 12 mosaics. Each mosaic is 8.3 meters wide by 3.3 meters high. Each wall (2 mosaics apiece) weighs 20 tons! The mosaics consist of flora, fauna, and also mankind distributed over the continents. We thought for awhile that someone had sprayed graffiti over the mosaics but after awhile decided that it was part of the art! Each puzzle piece is 5x5 cm. The walls make a circle around the Pavilion and every time you enter the circumference of the walls, sensors set off animal noises. (Believe me that got irritating as we walked around the walls!) The Pavilion contains information on the World Wildlife Federation objectives and tells about the Living Planet Square. Inside it is not much to look at but the exterior of the cube-shaped building is covered with large limestone slabs. These slabs were excavated from a Moroccan desert and contain many fossils, reminding people how old life is. The weird thing about the Living Planet Square is the Earth Spirit (yes, I saved the best for last). It is a 14 meter half man and half bird figure that is made of ivy. This huge figure is at the center and is a symbolic figure wearing a bird mask with shining eyes. Weird!

views along the Saar River

Well, we had walked around long enough so that the stores had opened and we zipped in to buy just that one serving bowl. Naturally, we came out with considerably more....but we did it quickly and soon were on our way to Trier. The drive was quite nice with the road going along the Saar River through wine country. It was amazing how many of the vineyards were on hills that had 45 degree angles. Also along the way there was an impressive quarry where everything - mining equipment and stone - seemed to blend in together in a red mass. (Of course, we took pictures of this because it would make a nice real-life model to use for our railroad layout scene!)

Trier

Trier is a city that claims to be older than Rome but in fact the Romans founded it. This gave it political clout in the Middle Ages and its archbishop ranked as one of the seven Electoral princes. Around 16 BC, the Romans founded the first city north of the Alps in the name of Emperor Augustus, making Trier the oldest city in Germany. During 3-4 AD, the Roman emperor ruled from this city. In the Middle Ages, Trier was still rich and influential. The archbishops and late electoral princes left behind many architectural calling cards. Today more than 100,000 people live there, many of which are students at the newly founded university (1970).

Porta Nigra

The Roman town Trier was surrounded by a short 6,5 km long city wall. At the northern end of the city, the gate Porta Nigra was erected in 2 AD of sandstone blocks, held together by iron rods. The name, literally "Black Gate", was given to it during the Middle Ages because weathering had made it a dark color. Potential attackers would be caught between the inner and outer gates, while the defenders would pour hot oil or molten lead down. The gateway was never breached. During the 11th century, a Greek hermit (later St. Simeon) lived in the bottom of the east tower to get away from the world. After his death in 1035, the Porta Nigra was transformed into a church to honor him. Although most of the religious additions in the Porta Nigra were torn down or removed in 1804 by Napoleon, you can still identify many Middle Age church elements. Attached to the west side of the Porta Nigra is the Simeonstift, the collegiate foundation. Its cloister, the Brunnenhof, is the oldest double cloister in Germany and is unusual in that the main walk is on the second floor supported by massive arcades below.

Dreikönigenhaus

The stretch from Porta Nigra on the Simeonstraße to the Hauptmarkt followed the former Roman road with some interesting buildings along its sides. The Dreikönigenhaus (House of the Magi) dates back to the 13th century. It is a whitewashed building with colorful trim. But what makes it interesting is that the entrance to it was on the second floor. This was a secure place to live for a wealthy merchant in unsafe times. A wooden staircase or ladder would reach up to the door. In either case, it could be easily removed when trouble arose.

Marktpetrusbrunne	Marktkreuz

The Hauptmarkt was hustling with the open market full of flowers and vegetables. Since the Middle Ages, the Hauptmarkt (main market) has been a central point of the city. The Marktkreuz (cross of the market) of 958 and the Marktpetrusbrunnen (fountain), depicting the Four Cardinal Virtues, of 1595 are surrounded by buidlings in the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classic styles. Among those buildings is the Steipe, the Festhaus der Ratsherren (1430), and the Rotes Haus (1684) (Red House, and yes it was red...and covered in scaffolding.) The former building served as the banquet hall of the town councilors and the latter bears the inscription that Trier is older than Rome.

St. Gangolf

Tucked away between the buildings (on all sides) is St. Gangolf; only an ornate Baroque portal betrays that something special is behind it. This Gothic church was built by its citizens, who tried to outdo the archbishops and their Dom church. The citizens, in a revolt against the temporal powers of the archbishops, added a tower in 1507 to make it taller than the Dom. (The archbishops in an effort to restore their superiority had one of the towers raised so that the Dom remained the tallest church.) The inside of the church was very simple with its simply painted vaulted ceiling. The altar fresco was created by the Trier artist August Gustav Lasinsky in 1850. At the center of the fresco is an impressive Jesus Christ who is sitting on a golden throne on a cloud with his arms stretched out. Kneeling on each side of him are Mary and Joseph. Below in the second tier of the fresco are St.Gangolf in his armor, the patron saint of the church (left), and St. Sebastian (right). The cross that stands as the focal point of the church is from the 16th century but it was covered in purple material for the Lent season. To the left of the altar was a chapel to Mary. Unlike the main church building, the additional aisle was stuccoed in the 18th century and the ceilings were very ornately decorated.

Dom

Next stop was to the rival church, the Dom, whose Romanesque center was already erected in 325 under the Emperor Constantine. It is the oldest bishop's church in Germany and its form was influenced by antique and Middle Age elements. Next to it stands the Liebfrauenkirche (or Liebfraumilchkirche to Helen) but we will get to that later. Supposedly Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine, donated the site of her palace on which to build an immense double church. The present Dom building with its four towers was started in 1030 but did not get finished until a couple of centuries later. Two pillars remain from the original church - a broken one laying before the main entrance and the other standing between the Liebfraukirche and the Dom. (It took us forever to find the one in front of the church. For some reason we were looking for one that was erect, not one that children were climbing all over.) Very little has changed in the exterior of the church since it was built - well, that is if you do not count making one of the towers taller! The inside of the church reminded us of Speyer, probably because of its massive and austere proportions. Several things caught our eyes, besides the ones that the tour books point out. As you enter, you see an incredible organ that seems to cling to one of the walls. It was installed in 1974 but was placed where the original one was.

Relic Chapel

The west chancel which served as a tomb altar for Archbishop and Elector Carl Caspar von der Leyen (1652-1676), and also as the Nicholas Chapel, has a wonderful stucco ceiling focusing on Mary's ascension into heaven. Around the arched shaped chancel stood statues of the apostles. Directly opposite it (although quite a distance) is the Relic Chapel. Two side staircases lead up to a platform in front of the door to the Relic Chapel. A massive facade offers a view into the chapel and higher up, an opening surrounded by angels and clouds gives yet another view, one almost like looking into a grotto. In the Relic Chapel is the Holy Robe of Christ, which he supposedly wore when he was crucified. Standing on each side of the steps leading to the chapel are Emperor Constantine, the founder of the church, and his mother, Helena, who supposedly found the robe in Jerusalem.

All Saints Altar

Another noteworthy sight was the All Saints Altar, which is also the tomb altar of Archbishop and Elector Lothar von Metternich (1599-1623) and was built in 1614 by Hans Ruprecht Hoffmann. It is crowded with figures and an amazing work of art, which I think you could study for hours and still discover new things. The small panels depict the Eight Beatitudes that Christ proclaimed during the Sermon on the Mount. In another section, Elector Metternich kneels before the Virgin Mary, who is surrounded by all the saints. Another section has Archangel Michael slaying the dragon, symbolizing the conquest over evil.

Liebfraukirche

Right next door to the Dom is the  and it occupies the southern section of Constantine's double church. (The original idea between a double cathedral was that there were two places to worship in the complex.) Its building began in 1235, making it only the second church to be built in the Gothic style in Germany. The floor plan is a rotunda with a cross superimposed on it. The vaulted ceiling is held up by twelve pillars, each representing one of the apostles. Inside you are caught up by the simplicity of the high vaulted but simply painted ceiling and its colorful stained glass windows.

Palastaula (Basilika)		Rokoko-Palais der Kurfürsten

Our next stop was to the Palastaula (Basilika). Around 300 AD, the Emperor Konstantine built a palace whose assembly hall (aula) still remains. In the Middle Ages, this building served as a bishopric residence and since 1856 it has been a church. The red bricked building was once decorated with marble, mosaics, and richly colored ornaments. Under the triumphant arch stood the king's throne. What is most impressive is its size: 30m (97.5 feet) high and 75m (244 feet) long with no supporting pillars! It now serves as a Protestant church. And quite contrasting is the building built adjacent to it - the Rokoko-Palais der Kurfürsten. This palace was built in 1756 for an archbishop who no longer cared for the Kurfürtsliche Palais (archbishop electors palace). This pink building with its white stucco trim far out shadows the plain brick Palastaula. Finally on the way back to the car we stopped by the Karl-Marx-Haus, which is where Karl Marx was born in 1818. (We had to do this since we had found a special Märklin wagon for it!)

We did not sight see the entire time in Trier....we had to have a coffee break or in Rick's case "testing out of the hot chocolate break." And naturally we had to make one last stop to the Villeroy & Boch shop where we saw an amazing sight. A bimbo was busy buying china while wearing in-line skates. The only time she set the china down was when she tried to go down the steps in skates! Amazing, huh? Of course, we did not go home empty handed - Rick picked up china bowls for the cats! Can you say spoiled? (Of course, my only comment was that the kitten would think that the bowls were too small!)

A few of the champagne bottles

Supper was again in Saarburg and this time we had a tour of the champagne cellar, which is in a former Spanish army barracks from the 1700s when the Spanish and the Dutch were battling. Some of the windows in the building were closed up and we wondered why. Apparently at one time, you had to pay tax for every window you had, so if you did not have the money, you could just block up a window! The champagne is prepared in the former army barracks and aged for two years before being brought up a flight of steps to the turning room, which has 10,000 bottles in it. Each bottle has a white mark on it so that the "turner" knows how far to turn the bottle. This will be done for 3 months every day after which the bottles are sent out to have their labels affixed. (What a mindless but necessary job!)

Saar River from Cloef	Burg Freyding

Sunday was another glorious day and off we went to see the Saarschleife near Orscholz. Unfortunately, the fog was still pretty thick but we had a nice view from the Cloef of the bend in the Saar River. On we drove with the destination of Kastel-Staadt in mind. But first we stopped in Freudenburg. Driving through one of the remaining town wall gates, we arrived at the sight of the ruins of the Burg Freyding. In 1337 King Johann of Bohemia, Duke of Luxembourg, had a 440 meter high fortress, then called Freyding, built on the military road between Trier to Metz. The fortress was part of a belt of buildings built for defending the area. Freudenburg achieved the status of a town in 1346. During the Thirty Years War, troops robbed and destroyed the fortress. Over the centuries the stones of the former fortress have been used to build other buildings, such as the nearby Heiligen-Dreifaltigkeits-Kirche (Holy Trinity Church) built in the 19th century. Despite this, the walls of the ruin still stand at least three storeys high.

Klause Kastel

On our drives to Saarburg and Trier we noticed a reddish colored building high atop the rocks on the Saar River near Kastel-Staadt. Klause Kastel began when a French Franciscan priest built a sanctuary in a cave chamber. From this, he erected a small chapel. The Preussen King Friedrich Wilhelm IV had Karl Friedrich Schinkel expand this crude chapel to honor the bravery of King Johann II of Bohemia, called the Blind. The chapel was built in the Romanesque style and integrated remarkably well with the surroundings to create an impressive combination of landscape and architecture. Johann of Bohemia certainly belongs to the monarchs, whose bones have been moved the most. During WWI, his bones were kept in Metz. His bones were later moved in 1946 to the cathedral in Luxembourg and now the chapel holds only a centograph, an empty grave.

Ehrenfriedhof

Nearby, only a few paces away, an old church, Alte Dorfkirche (the old village church) from the 12th century stands next to the Ehrenfriedhof which is a memorial to some of the fallen in WWII. The cemetery contained simple greenery with rows of inset cross markers for the dead. Every several rows a group of three weathered crosses appeared. Very simple and effective. It was sad to see how young some of the men were who died.

Völklingen

On our way back to Böblingen, we stopped at the Völkinglinger Hütter (steel mill) in Völklingen where the only remaining ironworks from the heyday of the iron and steel industry exists. In 1994 the Völklinger Hütte became the first memorial recognized for the Industrial Age in Germany by UNESCO. The old steel mill is currently being turned into a "park" where you can go and learn and see how iron and steel was made from coke, limestone and iron ore. Earth, Wind and Fire - not the name of old Rock and Roll group but the basic ingredients for making iron and steel and the theme of the park.

raw materials buckets	buckets took this route to the top	roller coaster?

The Röchling iron and steel mill was grounded in 1873 and was later expanded in 1890 to become one of the largest and most innovative steel producers in Germany. Despite both World Wars and the change in ownership between Germany and France, the Völklinger Hütte received countless investments and used state-of-the art technical innovations. Some of the innovations included a roller coaster type of loading the blast furnaces with raw materials from buckets that were suspended on overhead tracks that were pulled along by a single cable. At the time the Völklinger Hütte was the largest work provider in the steel industry in Saarland. The mill's decline began with the steel crisis of 1975 and in 1986 the blast furnaces of the Völklinger Hütte were extinguished.

Völklinger Hütte consisted of 6 blast furnaces and supporting infrastructure covering a 600,000 square meter area which is now just a few blocks from downtown Völklingen.

one of the motors	a compressor	compressor piston

The first building we went into is where the "wind" came from. This building was two floors and for good reason. The second floor is where most of the machines were, but some of the motors were so large that they protruded to the first floor. This floor contained 6 large air compressors that provided the air for the blast furnace. The air left this building in three large pipes (each was about 4 feet in diameter) that carried the compressed air to the blast furnaces. The pistons in each compressor was about 3 feet in diameter and there were two compressors driven off a single huge motor that had to be about 20 feet in diameter. The compressors probably produced somewhere between 80,000 to 200,000 cubic feet of air a minute. There were tools there used to maintain the machines that probably required an overhead crane just to lift them. I believe one of the wrenches we saw was about 3 inches thick and about 4 feet long. It looked like it was used for tightening the nuts that held the compressor head to the piston shaft. (This is Rick talking here - I had to keep asking him what everything was and why!)

After leaving the compressor building we walked across the street to the area where the blast furnaces were. Some of the railroad tracks were nicely covered to make walkways through about half of the outer perimeter. First all we could see was just the size of the piping and towers, you could not yet see the blast furnaces, except for the ventilation pipes coming out of the top of each one. There were 4 vents and they looked like a giant claw gripping the top. We walked along the railroad track and first came to the "earth" - storage bins where rail cars of raw materials where dumped. From here the iron ore and limestone were loaded into the buckets that took the roller coaster ride to the top of the furnaces.

Coke Oven is on the left. The new coke was pushed into a conveyor belt on the right.	This machine pushed the coke out of the oven, and filled the oven with coal to make more coke.

Behind the blast furnaces was the coke ovens, where coal was turned into coke for use in the furnaces.

	Top of the blast furnace.
This type of car hauled the slag away.	This type of rail car hauled the hot liquid iron away	The locomotives were made squat so they would fit under the blast furnaces.

At the top of each furnace the raw materials were dumped and a huge lid was closed on top of the furnace. At this time it was ready for the "fire". The compressed air from the compressor house is first fed through burners where it is heated to about 1300 to 2400 F. Air that has been through the furnace is cleaned and is also used to heat the incoming air. The hot incoming air at the bottom of the furnace causes the coke to ignite creating numerous chemical reactions that result in iron being made. After a certain amount of time a hole was bored at the bottom of the furnace and the molten iron ran out into rail cars to be taken to other areas to be turned into ingots or sheet steel.

We definitely saw a range of things on this trip - from religious cathedrals to the cathedral of the iron age! How will we ever top this trip?