Did you know that 10 percent of the world’s products are knockoffs — imitations of superior items? It’s such a large industry that a museum devoted entirely to the subject opened in 2007 in Solingen, Germany.

Saarbrücken, however, is not a knockoff.

The city of 175,000 and the capital of the far western German Saarland state is the home of a burgeoning, if underappreciated, arts scene that is all its own.

It was the end of October, and I needed a vacation. It would be my first vacation since moving to Sweden in August 2010, and Paris was out of the question. So was Barcelona, Rome, London, Athens, Morocco, Cyprus, Venice, and similarly priced destinations known for being tourist hotbeds.

But I still needed to go somewhere.

I remembered a promise I had made to a friend a few months before at my home university. Throughout the previous year, I had become close friends with an exchange student named Katrin. I sent her an email saying I was thinking of coming to visit, and I soon found myself in Blieskastel, perhaps the sleepiest of Saarland’s sleepy villages.

Situated along the river Blies, the narrow, windy cobblestone streets of the city of just under 22,000, transport the visitor back several centuries. Though technology abounds – this is Europe, after all – it takes a backseat to fantasies of medieval derring-do. As someone who still dreams of knights, dragons, and princesses locked in high towers, it was as if I’d died and gone to heaven. The fact that Katrin actually lived here was unbelievable.

But if the picturesque village was stunning, then Katrin’s house was breathtaking. Katrin and her family were all artists, and their massive home was covered from floor to ceiling with paintings, sculptures, drawings, and more – all of it made by someone in the family. It was like staying in a museum, albeit one with the fanciest guest room and softest bed I’d ever slept in.

If the art wasn’t overwhelming enough, Katrin’s mother, I soon found out, might very well be the best cook in Europe. Succulent sausages, sumptuous spatzle, delectable dumplings, salads, waffles, and innumerable other culinary creations passed in regal four-course meals rivaling that of a Michelin Star restaurant; it was the best food I’d ever had.

The food and the art would be a happy harbinger of things to come.

The next day Katrin and her boyfriend, Florian, took me on a tour of Saarbrücken itself. Located about 25 kilometers from Blieskastel next to the Saar river, the city was among the most heavily damaged by Allied bombing raids during World War II, but a few gems of Baroque architecture remain, chief among them the Ludwigskirche (“Ludwig’s Church”) and Saarbrücker Schloss (Saarbrücken Castle).

The architecture was magnificent, to be sure, but what struck me was how carefully designed everything seemed to be. People were fashionably dressed, signs were pleasing to the eye – even the trees seemed to have been pruned to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible. At the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar (Saar College of Fine Arts, one of the most prestigious art schools in Germany), the seemingly random paint splatters against a sheet of white cloth in the student gallery was on par with the greatest works by any contemporary artist – or at least the bird’s nest sculpture made of newspaper not too far from it.

It was obvious that Saarbrücken’s arts scene is thriving. A metal fountain possessed of a certain Escher-like quality swallowed one of the main shopping streets in the Sankt Johanner Markt area, while an equally outlandish sculpture could be found in the main train station. There was little need to step into the myriad art galleries dotting the streets: the entire city was an open-air visual arts display.

A mid-afternoon snack along Sulzbachstrasse found us at Café Schubert, a confectionery famous for its pies, cakes, and other pastries. The place was as much a feast for the eyes as a menace to the waistline, and I was unsure what to order. A piece of cheesecake, perhaps, or a turtle truffle, or maybe, even a slice of peanut butter and chocolate pie?

Katrin and Florian assisted by suggesting a slice of Black Forest Cake. The choice made sense, considering the actual Black Forest was only about 150 kilometers away.

Just like the streets of Blieskastel, the cake took me to another place. This time, it was a chocolate river with a cherry undercurrent, and a creamy surface flecked with bits of shaved cocoa floating lazily like bits of flotsam. Each bite was a story of a life spent in layered bliss.

At the conclusion of our chocolaty soiree, we rendezvoused with Katrin’s mother for a ballet performance of the Donlon Dance Company, the official resident company of the Saarländisches Staatstheater (Saarland State Theatre), at the Alte Feuerwache. With 300 seats, the Alte Feuerwache is the State Theatre’s second-largest venue, and previously served as a gymnasium for the local fire brigade before it was converted into a theatre in January 1982.

Led by Marguerite Donlon – who has choreographed for companies in such places as Chicago and the Netherlands – the Donlon Dance Company became the resident company in 2001. Since then, the company has established itself within Germany and has guested extensively throughout Europe, the United States, and South Korea. This particular performance, dubbed Silent Mov(i)e, billed itself as an homage to “the charm and the striking physicality characteristic of the silent film era: the movement as a whimsical act of self-assertion, the peril of things hot on their trail.”

The small room – and even smaller stage – lent itself to an intimate, up-close atmosphere. Despite the elaborate stage setup designed to look like a house, the performance had a certain visceral quality to it, masterfully blending the comicality of silent films with a melancholia that would have made Charlie Chaplin blush.

Ballet had never previously interested me, but this was something different. This was something…athletic. Sure, it was artistic (what dance isn’t?), but it was the incredible flexibility of the ballerinas, and the sheer strength of the men holding them aloft – sometimes with one hand. To say, I was impressed, was the understatement of the century.

At the ballet’s conclusion, the audience stood and applauded for a good ten minutes. And I too clapped vigorously – not just for the ballet, but for Saarbrücken.

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