Curious Kiwi Cyclist: Musing in Mulhouse

We've had two full days in Mulhouse, in the Alsace region of France, and have enjoyed the experiences we've had despite the inclement weather. Our Warmshower's host, Dominique Rosenfeld, is very much into his cycling and organises city wide events aimed at encouraging more people to cycle in the Mulhouse area. He describes himself on the Warmshowers site as a flâneur, a state he can fully explore now he is retired, so he knows all the nooks & crannies of his town and region - such a wonderful person to introduce visitors to France! Seeing both Caroline & I are poor at French, Dominique has mainly communicated in German with Caroline. His daughter speaks English as did a couple of his friends so we were saved some embarassment ........ I really should have paid attention during those two years I did French at school!

Through Dominique we have met a number of interesting people most of whom are members of the French Green Party so we had interesting conversations about the upcoming French elections and global politics generally. They were interested in how things are in NZ as they rarely hear anything about our wee nation! We've done some updating them from our perspective ..... :-) From them we also learnt a new card game called Tarot, which strangely for me as I usually hate card games, I picked up easily and won a few hands! It went on for some time so Monday night was a late night!!

All meet-ups & conversations have been carried out over food, particularly over various breads & a great variety of cheeses as well as warming soups & French versions of pizza. Dominique has been a more than generous host in this regard so we should manage the 55kms to Montbeliard as we're well carbo loaded! Mind you the weather had been so cold these past 3 days that we've needed all the warming food to fight the cold bugs that have been tickling our throats. [A life saver has been my possum merino cardigan; so warm & cosy and have even worn it when cycling to keep warm!]

Mulhouse is a very historic town having been over time a Germany principality, a region of Switzerland and of France, part of greater Germany under the Nazis then French again. During the 18th & 19th centuries it was an industrial powerhouse growing from a population of 6000 to 30,000 in less than 60 years, and the museums we visited told us some of that story.

First on my list was a visit to the Museum of printed fabrics - we spent 2 hours there & it definitely wasn't long enough mainly as I had no idea printing on textiles was so complicated and interesting. This museum like many others in France opens 10-12 then 2-6pm .......so at 12 we went back to Dominique's place as he had prepared a sumptious repast for us, which we shared with his friends Cece and Loic.
After that it was off to the Electropolis: electricity museum for 3 hours; an amazing place that thankfully exhibited their information in 3 languages. I certainly learned a great deal about the development of electricity and the risk those early scientists took as they explored ways to harness nature's power. Even after 3 hours we hadn't seen it all but some of it was outside & with temperatures at 6C that afternoon we ere fine with skipping those bits!
Our final museum was the biggest: the Automobile museum which houses thousands of cars but particularly Bugattis & Citroen...... and I thought the car museum in Paraparaumu was big! I loved the early cars as they were nice & slow!
We had hoped to go also to the Wallpaper museum but that involved an hour cycling there & back and considering how cold it was we decided to cut our losses & take in museums closer to Dominique's place.

Dominique also took us on a morning tour of Mulhouse to show us some old industrial sites, the worker communes built in 19th & 20th C to house the poor - narrow lanes breaking up the tenement cottages or apartment blocks - and have been renovated in the early 2000s (not so successfully as those in Freiburg as cars still dominate) the street art that the city has commissioned over time. I will put the works we saw on Flickr at some stage. We also liked the narrow streets and mix of architectural styles to be found in the city centre; hanging around in the many cafes would be lovely in summer but temps of 2-10C just weren't conducive to hanging out!

In conclusion, should you ever venture to France do check out the Alsace region & Mulhouse in particular but do have some French (or German) up your sleeve to make life easier!