Mulhouse - and snow!

Monday 24^th March

Another day and the weather doesn’t show any sign of warming up. Today was 3C in some places and we had hail and snow. The weather forecast tonight showed a cold front moving in so I don’t expect it to be much warmer tomorrow.

Today we ventured to Mulhouse which is NE from Belfort. We were headed for the train museum but hoped to have a look at the tourist railway nearby. We didn’t actually find the start of the trip but there were men working on the track so we presumed that it was probably not running – maybe in summer.

As we drove across to Mulhouse we could see snow on the mountains nearby, and the temperature hovered around 5C. Even though distances aren’t very great from A to B it seems to take a long time to get there because the maximum speed on the main (not highway) roads is 90 and most towns have a limit of 50. This limit is not actually posted at the town boundary; rather you have to know that at the sign that says the town name you slow to 50 and at the other end where the town name has a line across it you can speed up again. We’re getting it more together each day.

 

Another village - more German influence
 as closer to the German border

Mulhouse – the train museum. I’m not much in to trains but this is a very well organised museum with trains restored from the beginning of rail in France and really well displayed. The building itself is quite a splendid piece of work. It’s amazing how many of the trains I remember being in service in Victoria – probably not the exact model, but the same sort of carriages. We spent a good amount of time at the museum and also had lunch there.

After leaving the museum we were headed for the town of Bruebach where there was reported to be a quilt shop. We drove along the street very slowly in both directions but failed to find the shop. This was where it started to snow so we decided not to linger but head back towards Belfort.

Again we took some very back roads to get away from the traffic on the main roads and saw some lovely French villages. We also came across a tank with a memorial on the edge of a hill. Hard to believe that these farms and villages were only 80 years ago bombed and destroyed.

On return to Belfort we visited the fort here which was built in the 1600s and played a role in the Franco Prussian wars. Here there is a sculpture of a lion mounted on the side of the fort overlooking the town. This lion was sculpted by the same man who did the statue of liberty.

We used Dora (the explorer GPS) to find our way into the centre of town and had a walk round the main square. Last night we got totally bamboozled in here whilst looking for a restaurant for dinner. This afternoon with the help of Dora we had no trouble, and surprise, surprise, there was a haberdashery (mercerie) store here. A quick browse inside and another small addition to the stash. (And by the way, I have done some stitching - I darned a hole in my sock this morning with embroidery thread!)

In the village square - had to buy a scarf
it is so cold

The dry cleaner - an interesting
window display

Now relaxing in front of French TV – not an English channel to be found in the umpty dozen channels we have. Tomorrow we move on to Dijon.