Mulhouse
We cycle into town to find a local internet café and after a frustrating search end up in a Starbucks to catch up with email etc. Back at Emma, Ruth decides to bring our blog up to date while I am tempted by the Cité de l’Automobile, purportedly the largest car museum in the world and put together over a number of years by two fanatical brothers called Schlumpf (Ruth tells me this is the German name for Smurfs and so can’t get her head around the idea of a serious museum with that name).
For a lover of old cars like myself, it doesn’t disappoint and is indeed of epic proportions. Apart from the largest collection of Bugattis in existence, it features all classes of mainly European cars, from the earliest days of motoring to the present day; from family saloons to Formula 1! Having been the proud owner of a Citroen light 15 – the traction avant – I was delighted to find a number of pristine examples, especially one, that for a price, one could drive six times around the track: an extravagance I know but an experience I find impossible to resist.
Later, there is a historical procession on the same track, favouring Renaults, Citroens and Peugeots, with an accompanying commentary full of humour and with the drivers dressed according to the age of the cars. I return to Emma satiated but mindful of the fact that in the morning we’re meeting the leader of a transition town intent on weaning his community away from oil dependency!
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