Mulhouse in a day

[Deleted]

I wanted to go to Mulhouse just as a starting point for a small trip in the east-central part of France. I already knew that is a rather charmless industrial city and it not at all picturesque like the rest of Alsace. However, it has a main claim to fame other than being the birthplace of Alfred Dreyfus -- it is the site of the largest industrial museums in Europe. I was determined to see at least one of them as well as whatever else I wandered across.

My train arrived a little before 10 a.m. and took the new southern route instead of the classic eastern route. Most trains to Mulhouse used to leave from Gare de l'Est and go down to Alsace. There was also a route out of Gare de Lyon and for most of the 20th century it had the dismal honour of being the very last non-electrified long distance train line in France. Now that the TGV line has been completed, all of the trains from Paris to Basel and Zürich leave out of Gare de Lyon and also serve Mulhouse.

This train stopped a few times and allowed me to see the surprising Besançon-Franche Comté TGV station which is buried under vegetation. All of the buildings and platform roofs are vegetalised with local, er, weeds. Last time I took the train from Paris to Zürich I didn't see any of this because the train just whizzed through without stopping. Unfortunately I was able to get only one photo of a platform roof.

Arriving in Mulhouse, I dumped my bag at the hotel and walked to the centre of the city. The hotel was right across for the museum of printed fabric.







There are some massive arcades, but the ones in Metz are much better.



In the distance I spotted Saint Etienne, the tallest protestant church in France.



Downtown Mulhouse -- at least this part -- was a bit dismal, even though this was the main shopping street.



This dog beggar appeared to be the most popular person in the city, even though there were dozens of other dog beggars. All of the locals stopped to chat.





I stopped at the tourist office to get a street map.

[Deleted]

All of the statues downtown were built out of industrial scraps.

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This is more than the municipal baths -- it is also the historic swimming pool of the city.





City hall was directly across the street and was surprisingly non ostentatious. Later I saw that the old ostentatious city hall is now the museum of fine arts.



Finally I reached the historic district.









An isolated market stand was selling goodies.











Here is Guillaume Tell with his famous bow and apple boy.



The church was not accessible.

[bjd]

Sorry to say you are just confirming my non-desire to go to east-central France even though some of the old central area looks nice enough.

I was interested however to see that Besançon now has a TGV station. When the first TGV line opened, it went from Paris to Lyon via Dijon and we had to get off in Dijon and get on a slow train to Besançon.

Mulhouse used to be known for its old car museum.

[Deleted]

Signage in the city was quite good.







I couldn't even figure out some of the street decoration.







Workers were busily installing one of the ugliest plant installations that I have ever seen. Mercifully temporary.









This pigeon knew what it wanted and knew how to get it.

[Deleted]

I never remember what these "paper lantern" trees are called, but I was surprised to see this one in bloom, in transformation and with dry pods simultaneously.



There is a small craft harbour on the canal across from the train station. I suppose there is easy access to the Rhine from here.



The current train station was built around 1933 and "simplified" when it was repaired in 1945. No statues or bas-reliefs...















After checking in at the hotel, it was time to go to a museum. I took the tram to get there.



It would have been difficult to get off at the wrong stop.



You actually have to walk about 500 metres from the station.



The walk was interesting because it went through a whole bunch of gardening allotments.

Among its attractions, Mulhouse has the largest automobile museum in the world -- the incredible Schlumpf collection which totally bankrupted them when their collection mania took precedence over their industrial activity -- and also the largest train museum in the world, the largest electricity museum in the world and museums for plenty of other things -- a motorcycle museum, the aforementioned printed fabric museum and even a wallpaper museum. So it really gets lots of tourists but mostly from France, Switzerland and Germany because it attracts people for a short weekend break, particularly for families with children.

I will post a report about the train museum in the Maritime Museum shortly.

Afterwards, I returned to my hotel, which just opened. It is quite nice to stay in a place with no wear and tear yet.



The view from my window was nice.



Sunset was excellent.

And now it's time to leave Mulhouse. Next time I'm here I will definitely visit the automobile museum.

[tod2]

That setting sun looks stunning. The museum of printed fabric would certainly interest us - let alone the train and automobile museums!
I was surprised to see the 'wild dagga' plant thriving in the northern hemisphere! The bright orange tubular flowers are a hummingbirds heaven and I see the bees are also quite at home.
The 'paper lantern' tree is the same one found up at the top Parc de Belleville. You took some lovely photos of it about three years ago. Sorry also can't remember the name.
Thanks for an interesting walk around Mulhouse.

[bjd]

For some reason, I hadn't realized that Mulhouse was on the Rhine. Interesting that the signs are also in German. I would have expected Alsatian. Definitely Germanic-looking architectural details.

Thanks for these photos and the visit of the city.

[Deleted]

The street names appeared to be in Alsatian besides French but the information signs were in French and German.

Mulhouse is about 4 or 5 kilometres from the Rhine, but the canal connects it to the Rhine.

[lagatta]

I found the signs in Alsatian rather challenging to read; at least as written there, it seems very different from standard German.

[bixaorellana]

Most interesting to read about an area that surely is not on most foreign travelers' radars. How did it come to have so many industrial museums? It was clever of them to concentrate several in their city in order to attract visitors. I'm with Tod on the appeal of the printed fabric museum.

The regular part of town looks quite pleasant and walkable, as well as the quainter historic area. You really got some lovely pictures -- the drinking pigeon, the shots of the canal & of the craft harbor through flowers, the garden allotments, and the remarkably natural-looking man out of industrial scrap among many.

The train station does look properly art deco-ish for its year of construction, but your remark about simplification made me try to find a photo from 1932. No luck there, though.

[Deleted]

Aug 31, 2016 14:02:15 GMT lagatta said:

I found the signs in Alsatian rather challenging to read; at least as written there, it seems very different from standard German.

My Swiss friends who speak Schweizerdeutsch find Alsatian much easier to understand than standard German.

[lagatta]

I"m not surprised about Schweizerdeutsch and Alsatian.

Bixa, I think it was mainly because Mulhouse was an old industrial centre of central-Eastern France. Look at its name. Do the tributaries of the Rhine there plunge in the area, speeding up the waterflow and making it an ideal spot for water mills?

[Deleted]

Most of the mills were downriver, closer to the Vosges where the water flows faster into the Rhine. Mulhouse and Basel were practically the same city in terms of industry, but Basel was luckier in the last 40 years by turning to pharmaceuticals when the iron and coal driven industries withered away. If I'm not mistaken, Mulhouse still has a huge car factory (Peugeot) to keep it on the industrial map.

Meanwhile, Basel has finally cleaned up its act because it used to poison the entire Rhine regularly and kill millions of fish with "accidental" chemical spills.