2025-05-06 Mulhouse

 

Mulhouse (pronounced in Alsace as mul OOZE) has a couple of museums that sound pretty interesting. The girls are interested in "le Musée de l'impression sur étoffes" the world's largest historical collection of printed fabrics, most using wooden block printing. The guys are interested in "le Musée National de l'Automobile, collection Schlumpf." with over 450 old cars. For these, we will divide and conquer.

The Automobile Museum

Weather is iffy today, with rain predicted for the afternoon. Hoping that the morning will allow us to be outdoors, we headed south for 25 miles. 

It's colder than we expected and windy, so all of us are huddled in our coats. We should have brought one more layer today.

That's me in the red trying to stay warm and dry. Neither worked.

We parked just across the street from the Tourist Bureau where self-guided tour brochures led us the two blocks into the old city. We found an interesting art installation around a couple of trees outside the Tourist Office.

Tourest Office 

These trees are wrapped in crocheted trunk dresses

This tree was at the Musée des Beaux Arts

Mulhouse is quite a large and modern business city. It boasts 110,000 residents but has still managed to maintain its 16th and 17th century city center. 

Place de la Réunion - in front of the town hall - so named to celebrate the union of Mulhouse to the French Republic - around 1792

Of note is the very ornate town hall which marks the center of the historical city.. 

Hotel de Ville - City Hall

Painted figures on the end of the Hotel de Ville

Kim by the fountain near the Hotel de Ville - still decorated in its Easter finery

On the town hall square, as in many French cities, there is a merry-go-round to entertain the kids.

Merry-go-round on Place de la Réunion

The town hall square is surrounded by houses of historical importance. We took photos of ones  that were interesting to us - old mostly. Europe does not tear down old houses (and they were built to last), but repurposes them, modernizes the interiors, sometimes adds rooms on (but always discretely) and keeps up the historic elements of the house. Of course, as we've learned from vintners we've met, these homes stay in the family for generations, sometimes going back to the 1500's or earlier.

Mieg House - on Place de la Républic

Former presbytery of Temple St Etienne (In the French Revolution, churches were renamed as non-denominational Temples )

Anchoring the other corner of the town hall square is the city's very large church, Temple Saint Etienne. 

As we walked toward the restaurant Dave had booked for us for lunch, we passed this playground. It looks like a lot of fun for the young monkeys. (I'm thinking of you, Sasha, Sonna, Evie, Penny, Tristen, & Arwyn!)

Dave had researched Zum  Sauwadala online and found it also in our Michelin Green Guide. It's located just a couple of blocks from the historic city center. Good thing, because the sprinkles are getting stronger!

Its menu features classic Alsatian dishes. We arrived a bit early since it had begun to sprinkle. The restaurant didn't disappoint. The inside was, if not genuinely old, decorated historically, and had all the trimmings of an Alsatian wine bar. Reviews from French patrons were universally glowing. 

Despite only opening at noon, the restaurant was bustling. A man and woman were the sole servers for this pub, with the woman primarily behind the bar filling drink orders. But service was attentive and our waiter spoke English! 

Orders of rabbit, choucroute garni (sauerkraut with meats), and various tartes flambées (that extra thin crust, sour cream and cheese pizza). Our meals were universally delicious, except Dave and I were unable to finish our sauerkraut. 

As I was leaving the restaurant and giving our "pardons" to the table next to us (tables are so close together that those moving from the bench had very little butt room for leaving) one of the gentlemen asked if we were American. When I said "yes" he was astounded that we had found this genuine Alsatian restaurant. Americans don't come to restaurants like this. I took that as a compliment and left with a "Bonne journée". 

Outside, it was now raining, and we  had several blocks to get back to the car. Crossing streets here can be an adventure as there are trams and their rails all over, making streets wider to cross and with fewer cross walks. We were all rather dampish by the time we got in the car. In a city like Mulhouse, the contrast is easy to see. Modern Mulhouse is just two blocks from the historic district.

Dale drove us the short distance to the fabric museum where they were able to pull up right to the door thanks to a closed lane (construction) in front. The boys went on a bit farther to find the car museum. We were to call them half an hour before we were finished and they would pick us up. This plan actually worked well. We were spared the cars, and they were spared  the fabrics. We were all happy.

Lynn looks at a demonstration of the fabric printing process

Fabric samples of selvedge edges

projected image of a fabric panel

The fabric museum traced the history and inspirations for the printing on fabric. We learned that this museum has the largest collection of sample fabrics in the world. In its early stages, more than 10 steps were required to print a design on cotton. Mulhouse became a center for this craft. We learned that DMC embroidery floss came from the mills of Mulhouse owned by the Dollfus-Mieg & Compagnie. While the company was begun in 1746 to manufacture chintz, DMC thread wasn't created until 1898. The company is still manufacturing in Mulhouse. 

What to say about the car museum? The building and entrance look very modern which suits the decoration of cars at the entrance. Quite dramatic. 

The front window of the museum has full size models of cars where half the car is mounted inside the museum and the other half outside the museum. Wow!

Inside are automobiles nicely displayed in a giant indoor parking lot. OK, so maybe not a parking lot, but close. These are some of their favorites.

This is the first car that you could order and pick up - 1894

An early Bugatti

Lamborghini - AVentador S - from 2011 (named after a famous fighting bull) one of the few modern cars in the museum - it goes 0-100 km/h in less than 3 seconds 

Another Bugatti 

Rolls Royce

Back together again, we head home for dry clothes and soup for dinner. Of course, there was wine.

This is a usual pre-dinner processing of photos

2026-05-05 Ribeauvillé

With only a few days left for Dale & Kim and Janis & Clark, we need to make everyday count. Today we plan to visit Ribeauvillé, just 24 km away (23). 

This town is too large to be a Plus Beau Village, but is known as a tourist attraction, even among the French. We plan to discover why.

Near where we parked was this tower with a stork's nest on it

We can't resist stork photos and this one turned out great.

   

It's threatening rain, so we packed the rain coats for the first time since arriving. We also packed our lunch, planning to eat that somewhere picturesque in town. On arrival in Ribeauvillé, it's clear that it's a big  tourist town as we passed many large (for France) parking lots on our way to center town. Since it's early spring, there were not an overwhelming number of tourists in town today. There were however, lots of cars on very narrow streets with little room for pedestrians.

Grand Rue is the main street through town. Cars used this street.

Notice the two castles looking over the town, Built by the Ribeaupierre family who were the lords of the town.

First stop is the Post Office to mail postcards. The two women working were very helpful and friendly. But clearly they didn't sell a lot of postcard stamps to the US. They had to hunt some down from their safe.

Waiting outside the post office.

Buying stamps.

The tourist office a block from where we parked was our first stop. 

The square in front of the Tourist Office

The tourist office sign

With a walking tour brochure in hand, we set off  along the Grand Rue, the main street of town. We noticed plenty of tourist shops along the route, housed in the ground floors of ancient timber-framed buildings. 

Sign outside a toy store

A walk-up pretzel store. 

There are lots of interesting painted stucco buildings as well.

The Elephant House

This is why it's the Elephant House

The Grand Rue in Ribeauvillé is about a mile long. Toward the far end, we passed the City Hall and the Butcher's Tower (so named because it was the site of the Butcher's Guild) 

The Hotel de Ville (City Hall)

The Butcher's Tower

I was charmed by a potted tree planted in the square near the church. It's called L'arbre á Tetines (the Pacifier Tree) Look carefully and you'll see hanging from it all sorts of pacifiers. The sign posted on the large pot says:  "You’ve decided to separate yourself from you pacifier? Bravo, I know it’s not easy…you are very courageous. When you’re ready, take a little ribbon and attach it to the pacifier. Then, tell it goodbye and hang it on one of my branches. When all the pacifiers are hung, Santa Claus will take them to his workshop and the elves will transform them into gifts. Once more, Bravo for this big decision and above all Merry Christmas."

There are so many more half-timbered and painted stucco houses that I could post, but I won't. Instead here are some pictures with people in them. 

Clark, Janis, and Dave in front of wisteria

Janis and Clark

Clark in front a poster of Jeannala & Seppala, the Alsatian couple in traditional dress - a marketing couple if ever there was.

Dale on Grand Rue

Dave at the Butcher's Tower

You've probably noticed the grey skies and raincoats. It was supposed to rain in the afternoon. But it started sprinkling when we were at the farthest point away from the car and a few purchases yet to make. We agreed to meet at the square by the tourist office to eat lunch there. Not such a good idea. By now it was sprinkling harder. We ate what we could quickly and sped back to our car as the rain fell harder. 

Eating lunch at the Tourist Office square. Not our best lunch 

The stork didn't seem to mind.