Trains, Planes & Automobiles (minus the planes)

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4/11/05 - Mulhouse, not far from Colmar, is the home of the Musée National de Automobile. It includes exhibits of about 400 vehicles and the world’s largest collection of Bugatti cars, including the amazing Bugatti Royale.

Some other features of this museum include ….

A Peugeot 205 which you can sit in and experience how it feels to roll a car, multiple times, at high speed (not something I want to repeat in real life thanks).

A German car called a “Trabant” which is made of “Duroplast”. Sounds a bit like Elastoplast bandages and it is; the body of the car is made from cotton, sandwiched between two layers of resin.

There is a classic quote from the Citroen 2CV handbook “A car which can carry two farmers in clogs, 50kgs of potatoes, or a barrel, at a maximum speed of 60km/h …..” What more could you ask of your car?

There is a display of the Citroen E-City-Crosser, the title of the display is “the car of tomorrow”. But, it will, like all the rest of the vehicles throughout the museum, become the car of yesterday very quickly.

Now, how many Bugatti cars did I say were on display? If you are like me and have a love of cars and motorcycles, then you could stand and dream for days, weeks, or months at this place. You could happily loose yourself reliving those boyhood dreams of race car glory, etc. It’s not hard to be lost in the romance of the automobile in this place and the passion for racing and going as fast as possible. Great stuff!

Now, if you are into trains, then Mulhouse is also the home of the Cité du Train (City of Trains) Musée Française du Chemin de Fer (Railway Museum). I am not as into trains as I am cars and motorcycles, but the display here was truly excellent also. One locomotive still operates within the museum (even though it has been electrified it looks and sounds the part, especially when they spray the fake steam, complete with coal smell into the room).

Aside from many fine locomotives, the museum also houses former President, Charles de Gaul’s carriage. Plus a loco which set the world speed record in 1955 at 331km/h. Oh and in case you thought we left the Bugatti marque behind at the auto museum, there is a locomotive here with an engine built by Bugatti!

Food smuggling into Switzerland

5/11/05 - Jean, Beatrice, Bernard and I made a food run to Lausanne in Switzerland today. Our mission was to deliver home cooked meals, clean clothes and some more furniture to Jean-Frédéric. He rents a room close to the heart of town and the university which he is attending. We loaded the Renault with all sorts of goodies and headed for the Swiss border.

Beatrice joked that we were doing a charity run to those poor Swiss people. Beatrice was genuinely disappointed when the Swiss border guard waved us through without stopping us and searching the car. She had taken such great care to hide the food in the bags so they could not be spotted. For her efforts, the guard just smiled and waved us on - what a let down!

Evading Swiss parking taxes

We found Jean-Frédéric’s apartment easily enough, we left the car in a one hour parking zone and headed off for lunch. We joked that if I got a ticket the Swiss police could do their best to find me across the other side of the world if they wanted to. We laughed at the thought of my photo being placed on a wanted poster at all the Swiss border crossings. It was also amusing to think that next time I drive into Switzerland with Lorenza as my passenger and she may wonder why I am dragged from the car and taken to prison for tax evasion.

Horse lovers do not read this bit!

I must apologise in advance to the horses I met the other day in the Vosges mountains ....

The quality of food we experienced this time in Switzerland was a big plus. I tried the Cheval Australie, with herb sauce. That’s horse meat imported from Australia. So, for those Australians who find it odd that the French sometimes eat horse meat, keep in mind a lot of it is actually imported from Australia! I had mine well done and I must say it was delicious! It was washed down well with a Shiraz from South Africa. What an international place Lausanne is!

Left the camera in the car - bugger!

We walked off our lunch with a trip up the stairs to view the Protestant Cathedral. It was originally a Catholic set up, but was taken over by the Protestants during the reformation, hence all the vacant spaces where they removed the statues of Saints, etc.

Luckily, they had a medieval fair in the surrounds of the Cathedral today and were giving free guided tours to the towers of the Cathedral. It was a reasonable climb up the spiral, stone stair cases, but the view of Lake Geneva, the Alps (Swiss and French) was well worth it. On the opposite shore of the lake lies the French town of Evian. We discussed the idea that Evian possibly pumped the water from the lake, through a pipe to the mountains and then claimed it was spring water. Perhaps? Perhaps not?

The lake is actually not a lake, it is just a very, very wide river, in fact it is the Rhine River yet again. What an amazing waterway that huge river is!

We took a tour around town, then watched the sunset over the lake as we stood near the Palais du Justice. Silly fool me, I left my camera in the car, thinking we would have lunch and return to move the car before taking a walk (pays to be a good boy scout).

Too many goodbyes

One of the down sides of any vacation is the number of times you say goodbye, tot ziens, and au revoir to friends (new and old) and family and people you hold dear. This evening it was time to say au revoir to Jean-Frédéric. He told me to pass his regards on to Lorenza, Uncle Max and my sister Margaret, plus family. Both Lorenza and I really enjoyed spending more time this visit with Jean-Frédéric and getting to know him better. He is a lovely young guy (très gentil) and we wish him the best of luck with his studies. He better not forget he has to come up with some Swiss Banking ideas on how to fund the purchase of the Trois Epis villa!

La Cour du Bailli

I met a women today who originally came from the village of Ribeauville, at one time her sister owned a house nearby, in Bergheim, which became a residence hotel after she sold it. Her and her sister lived together for a period of time in this house. It just happens to be the same place which Lorenza and I stayed in when we visited Alsace last year. For a women of 93 years of age, she is very much alive and has a gleam in her eye which could not be missed.

She visited Jean and Beatrice today and I enjoyed talking with her very much. I found her French easy to understand because she spoke slowly and very clearly. Jean and I drive her to her home. She invited us in as she wanted to show me her husbands artwork and also the art which she had collected over the years she had been an art dealer in Paris.

The art works she had in her home were truly beautiful, particularly the works done by her late husband. His work was full of colour and the joy of life, the style I think was impressionist (I am as much an art expert as I am a horse expert). I liked his work very much, and it does not take an art expert to know when paintings are bright and full of a love of life. There were a number of portraits he had painted of his wife which were wonderful and the love he had for her clearly showed in these paintings.

Another aspect of his work which struck me was the paintings he produced before WWII were somber, charcoal looking affairs. As opposed to those he painted after the war, which were vibrant and jumped off the canvas at you. Amazing and I felt very privileged to see his work.

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