Saarbrücken

Saarbrücken has an impressive history of over a 1000 years, with its predecessors dating back to ancient Roman Empire. It has architectural heritage to prove that, and stands picturesquely over the bends of the river Saar, serving as the gateway to this underrated region of Germany.

Saarbrücken is the capital city of Saarland, one of the federal states of Germany. At 180,000 inhabitants (2018), it is at the lower end of Germany's long Großstädte (large city) list, and is perhaps the least prominent state capital, at least from the tourist's point of view.

Understand
Saarbrücken has been a primarily industrial city since coal extraction started in the first half of the 18th century. The steel industry developed on that base and up to today Saarbrücken has many plants manufacturing various metal products and components. Automotive components in general are another mainstay of the local economy, supplying many of the leading automakers all over Europe. In more recent decades, Saarbrücken has also developed into a robust hub for software production, employing thousands of local workers. For those reasons, Saarbrücken, while not popular as a tourist destination, sees a sizeable business-related visitor traffic, and due to its small size and location in a densely-populated area, it also has one of the proportionally largest commuter workforces, measured tens of thousands of workers.

Saarbrücken Airport
Apart from flights to holiday destinations, the airport has only four, albeit frequently-operated, connections. The shortest - and most often the cheapest - is the Luxair flight to Luxembourg Findel Airport, code-shared with Lufthansa. It is one of Europe's shortest flights, lasting just 30 minutes over just 100 km. The price is accordingly reasonably low. Some of the Luxair planes continue from Saarbrücken to Hamburg and Berlin Brandenburg and back. You can connect to selected European destinations of Luxair from Luxembourg, but there are no options to continue your Luxair flight from Saarbrücken via Berlin or Hamburg on another airline. Luxair, although an affiliate of Lufthansa, is not a Star Alliance member and the Luxembourg airport has no intercontinental connections.

That said, flying to Luxembourg on Luxair or any other airline and travelling the remaining 79 km by bus is perhaps the cheapest way.

Frankfurt Airport
Lufthansa provides a shuttle between Saarbrücken Dudweiler Bus Station and Frankfurt Airport, which is their largest hub for European and intercontinental flights. The shuttle is actually bookable as a Lufthansa flight (destination code for Dudweiler Bus Station is SDA), earns Miles&More participants miles and counts as a flight stretch, and can be combined with most Lufthansa flights to/out of Frankfurt. SDA appears as an available destination only when booking directly with Lufthansa. The flight numbers for the bus shuttles are LH348x-LH349x and there are multiple shuttles at different times of the day. The bus journey lasts around 2 hours and costs EUR 27 one way when booked on its own, and as a part of a connecting flight it usually incurs minimal price hike vs. flights to Frankfurt only.

There are direct regional trains to Frankfurt that stop at Frankfurt Airport.

Frankfurt-Hahn Airport
The so-called  in Hahn, likewise in Rhineland-Palatinate, is yet another close airport. There are no direct connections from this airport to Saarbrücken. One of the possibilities you have is to take the Airport Shuttle Mosel (RegioLinie 750) from the general bus station 500 meters from the airport to Bullay and switch to the regional train to Saarbrücken.

By car
From points east in Germany, it is reachable on the Autobahn A6 and A620, taking about two hours from Mannheim, while from Koblenz and Trier it is accessible on the Autobahn A48 and A1.

From Metz in France, follow the A4 up to exit 40, where you can then take the A320 up to the first exit of the A6 and follow the B41, while coming from Strasbourg, it is reachable on the N61/B406 from A4 exit 42.



By train
Frankfurt can also be reached by regular, regional trains, which take not much longer than the ICE (2 hr 50 min), but often aren't any cheaper either. The benefit of those is that there is at least one train per hour, even at nighttime, between Saarbrucken and Frankfurt. Other important difference is that ICEs don't stop at Frankfurt Airport, while the regional trains do.

Other destinations with direct express trains to Saarbrücken include Stuttgart (2½ hr), Ulm (3½ hr), Munich (4½ hr) and Salzburg in Austria (6½ hr) and some minor stations on that line. Regional trains calling in Saarbrücken can carry obviously carry you around Saarland, but they also reach out to many cities of Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as Lorraine in France (including Metz). Travelling to other destinations generally requires changing trains in Mannheim, Frankfurt or Paris for long-distance express trains or night trains, or procuring a more intricate combination of small stretches from one of the more minor stations closer to Saarbrücken.

By bus
CFL, Luxembourg's railway company, offers a bus connection between Luxembourg Gare (railway station) and Saarbrücken Busbahnhof (bus terminal). Multiple buses a day are coordinated with trains from Luxembourg to Brussels and from Saarbrücken to Mannheim and Frankfurt, as the other city does not have a direct connection with those destinations - thus the bus bridges the gap in the railway network. One-way ticket costs €9 as of 2014.

By tram
Between Saarbrücken in Germany and Sarreguemines in France, both of which are served by good domestic train connections, you can take a ride on the Saarbahn, a border-crossing tramway which is a part of Saarland's public transportation system. The journey takes approximately 30 minutes and in 2010 the ticket (to be bought at a machine, present also at the station of Sarreguemines) costs €4.60.

Get around
Saarbrücken has a decent public transport system. It has city buses and a tram line.



See




Eat
A Saarlandish specialty is Schwenker, a steak prepared on a special grill where the grilling rack is swung by the cook over a fire. It is often served at festivals and Biergärten.

Budget
All these are in the city centre:



Splurge




Drink
The main town square (St. Johanner Market) and the Nauwieser Quarter feature many bars and restaurants.



Go next

 * Saarschleife (Saar loop) &mdash; Take the regional train to Mettlach and then walk for about 5 km along the river upstream. There is also a lookout ("Cloef") which can be reached within about 1 hour from the bottom of the hill. Make sure you are on the left side of the river if you want to reach the lookout (you have to cross the river once when coming from the train station). You can also easily go to the Saar loop by bike from Saarbrücken (60 km one way).
 * Luxembourg &mdash; Easily reachable by bus (direct connection: 1 hour and 30 minutes).
 * Strasbourg &mdash; Easily reachable by regional train (direct connection: 1 hour and 45 minutes).
 * Trier &mdash; Porta Nigra, nice old town centre, etc. Easily reachable by regional train (direct connections between 1 and 1½ hours).
 * Metz &mdash; French city with the modern art gallery Centre Pompidou-Metz, Cathedral, food market, etc. Easily reachable by regional train within about 1 hour (some direct trains are available). Consider the special DB regional train ticket "Saar-Lor-Lux" for the entire trip, especially if you are travelling in a group.
 * Nancy &mdash; A cheap option to go there is to buy a Saar-Lorraine-Tarif ticket (only available at the train station; return tickets can only be bought at the counter).