Palenque

bertie - i once biked thru Mulhouse but only camped nearby - i will though visit again just to see the great French Transports Museum - any insights on that place?

gruezi

Bertrand,

Thanks for this very nice offer!

Bookmarking for a trip in December to your "neighborhood".

gruezi

bertrand

There are 2 museums not to be missed in Mulhouse :
- le musée du chemin de fer ( railroad museum ) web-site : citedutrain.com
- le musée de l'automobile ( car museum ) web-site : collection-schlumpf.com ( one of the largest car museum in the world...really !!! ).

Palenque

bertie - thanks for the citedutrain.com link - i am a rail nut not so much for cars but have heard about the car museum, which i believe is in an architectural gem of some type - so i'll come to see the museum structure more than to ogle the cars.

Coco Cheri - i was just fooling about your English being a tad worse than bertie's - in actuality you both write perfect English - much better than most of my former high-school English students could! Bravo!

bertrand

Hi Palenque,
If you are fond of trains, go to this web-site : train-doller.org
This old line runs through the valley about 10 miles from my place, it's very nice and only for tourists.

cocofromdijon

Je te pardonne chouchou Did you actually write this French sentence yourself? I suspect Sylvain was around to help you...

How funny the train dooler is going to Beaune in October! What a pleasant way to go from Alsace to Burgundy!

Palenque

Bertie - merci pour les infos du Train Doller!

Coco Cherie - Pourquoi te me doute? A Le 31em Sett approche! Je ne puet pas attendre! Rendez-vous au Hertoir Quai n 3?

bertrand

H Gruezi,
are you posting from Switzerland ?

kerouac

I was in Mulhouse a couple of years ago on one of my road trips to nowhere. About twice a year I take my mother out of the Alzheimer's nursing home for 2 or 3 days and drive her around. As long as she is riding in a car she is happy, but it is impossible to actually visit any of the sights. So I go to places where I would like to go, but I can't actually see anything.

Mulhouse was one of the places we spent a night -- very close to the two museums, but I could not visit either of them! The only important thing is to drive at least 500 km a day, so I have been frustrated absolutely everywhere in France on these trips -- as well as Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain!

Palenque

kerouac - how about taking the Peripherique round and round? It's touching your excursions with Mom - i cared at home for my Alzheimers mum for several years and she always like to go out driving as well - but i was lucky i could visit things with her and she was always happy going out and about and rarely a problem except when she would say something about someone like the time she saw an obese women in a wheelchair - 'if you weren't so fat you wouldn't need that'. Kudos for taking her on your road trips!

kerouac

Oh, I could be a taxi driver in Paris by now, having driven on just about every street in the city and the suburbs. When I take her to Léon de Bruxelles for mussels, I take her to one that is 30km out of the city instead of one of the Paris locations.

The only trouble is that I don't own a car and have to rent one for each outing (such as this weekend -- but I have a Smart this time, and that's always fun).

Palenque

Every mum should have such a son or daughter!

Bertie - arcane question for you - why is the Territoire de Belfort (sp?) a territory and not a department or if it is a dept then why is it called a Territory?

curious

bertrand

Hi, the Territoire de Belfort is a department (90) located is the southwest of the Haut-Rhin department (68) in the Franche-Comté région. The major city is Belfort (50 000 inhabitants) with a nice historic downtown and the famous Lion de Belfort sculpted by Bartholdi (statue of liberty).
It's called a territory because it was part of Alsace and when Alsace was annexed by Germany in 1870-71, Belfort didn't surrender and became a territory between France and Germany.
In 1918, Alsace came back to France in two departments (haut-rhin and bas-rhin), Belfort also became a department but the name territory stayed.
I hope that's the information you were looking for.
Bye

bilboburgler

I thouhgt there was a printing museum in Mulhouse. I seem to remember its one of the best in the world. Am I confused?

bertrand

hi, in fact there are two printing museums.
One is about wallpaper (museepapierpeint.org) located in the suburb town of Rixheim and the other is about textile (musee-impression.com) and is located in downtown Mulhouse, steps from the main railroad station.
Of course, these museums are some of the best in the world...like everything else coming from Alsace !!!
Did I mention I was born in Mulhouse ?
Don't be confused.

Kay_P

Last night I finished reading Cara Black's "Murder in the Sentier". A character in this novel is from Mulhouse. Have never heard of it before and now I find Bertrand from Mulhouse on Fodors. How interesting. By the way Cara Black is an American author who writes mysteries based in Paris.

kay

Palenque

Mercie Bien, Bertie!

Trivia Q- Will i see a bundle of Alsatian dogs in Alsace? do these dogs speak English or German?

Anyway enjoying your expertise and insights on Alsace!

bertrand

Hello, in fact, the name Alsatian is not in use. We call these dogs German Shepherds. They can maybe speak in English but they for sure bite in German !!!
I love your questions, they bring me back to school years !

Palenque

Ok one more and i do appreciate your willingness to entertain such arcane questions - you say you call them Bergers Allemands? (pardon my French) and i often heard my French son call them "Chiens loup" or to me wolf dogs - is the term Chien Loup only applied to Bergers Allemands or to any large German shephed-like dog?

And i was always amused by the term 'chien loup'

Encore merci bien.

bertrand

The "chien-loup" is the result from the mating of a wolf and a German Shepherd ( I believe that eastern Europe armies do such a thing ).
We call'em "chien-loup" when we don't exactly know what kind of dog they are, espacially when big and scary.