Karl & Carl • Saarbrücken (342 km)

(Saarbrücken, 30.05.2025-01.06.2025) "CRISS-CROSSING EUROPE WITH A SPECIAL FOCUS ON HOTSPOTS" is the motto of my tour this year. If all goes well, we will visit political, historical, cultural, social, and scenic hotspots. We will start in Trier and the Saarland, the smallest German federal state, which has just over one million inhabitants. The French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 furthered the "French-German enmity". While in exile in London, Karl Marx worked on his magnum opus „Das Kapital“, and Carl Röchling acquired the Völklinger Hütte, installing the first blast furnace there in 1873. While Karl Marx's theories did not pass the practical test, the Völklinger Hütte has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the post-industrial era, and Franco-German friendship has shaped the European Union. The former Villa Röchling is now called Villa Europe and serves as the administrative headquarters of the Franco-German University in Saarbrücken. Not a bad start in the Saarland!