Feathery Angels
Hi Everyone,
There were quite a few highlights of the trip to Mulhouse as well as Mulhouse itself.
At a place called Montbeliard, I visited the Peugeot Museum which is located at the Peugeot factory.
I found it quite difficult to get to the museum because it was on the other side of the factory, which in iteslf was a 6Km ride from the barge. The factory was bigger than the Boeing Aircraft factory and encompassed many suburbs. If I had possessed a fluorescent vest, I would have been able to ride through the factory, but that was not the case. So, I had to ride a number of kilometres around the outside.
Many people do not know that the factory started in the 1700s and initially produced tools, crinolines for womens' dresses then coffee grinders, bicycles, carriages and then cars. Peugeot outproduced all of the US for cars until some time around 1910 or so. The museum was absolutely fantastic with many historical items and hundreds of pristine antique cars, bicycles etc. Of course, there were modern items as well. One definitely did not have to be a car enthusiast to appreciate this truly excellent place.
People had told me that as well as the Peugeot museum, there was an even grander one at Mulhouse. Charlie and I visited it and were exhausted by the end. We were able to catch the excellent tram right to the front door. There were hundreds of old cars from the first ones invented to futuristic cars not yet in production. There was even a special event where a selection of very old vehicles were driven around a track for us to see and hear. This National museum has a huge collection of Bugattis (I think the biggest collection in the world) plus many Rolls Royces, Mercedes Benz and other excellent cars. Just the cars from pre-1900 were too many to count!
Mulhouse is a large town which is close to Switzerland, Germany and the Rhine River. Its Harbour handles 2million tonnes of barge freight a year. It was one of the principal industrial towns on France and today still has that flavour, but has been "reclaimed" through urban renewal and made into a tourist attraction with 8 museums, a couple of zoos etc.
We arrived there on Bastille Day (Fete National) and rather than the traditional parades, bonfires, firecrackers etc, Mulhouse put on a four day extravaganza of street theatre, movies, circus performances, Hamlet and other things.
On the Saturday night, Penny arrived on schedule from Australia. I whisked her to the barge to deposit her bag, then we took her straight to the "angels" performance. Well, it was certainly spectacular! For days, the organisers had been stringing wires high above the town square. It was dark when the show began a little after 10pm and the rain just managed to stay away. "Angels" dressed in white suits and feathers came swooping down the wires and threw feathers onto the huge crowd below. There were many other scenes involving the angels pretending to fight and huge amounts of feathers everywhere. There were angels flying down from lots of different places and some of them spun around getting lower and lower until they were just skimming the heads of the huge crowd. What a spectacular performance.
We have just been doing the planning for coming down the Rhine River and the Grand Canal de Alsace. We are looking forward to this new experience where we will be "mixing" with huge commercial barges, ships etc. There is a lot of current, which we will enjoy because it means that we will travel at twice normal speed, but we need to ensure that nothing goes wrong as we do not want to become "mincemeat" in the huge hydro-electric generators on the river or miss a lock entrance and go over a large weir.
More later!
Pictures show:
Peugeot Museum (3) Angels and the feathers (4) Car Museum Early bicycle (no pedals or brakes) Cars..cars....cars Trapeze artists at Mulhouse Mulhouse Town Hall Staircase locks
Best Regards, Dave
