Day 64: Mulhouse museums

Disclaimer: All voyages in this blog are being taken safely in the comfort of our imaginations - based on our plans and intentions for travel in 2020. What is reality after all? 

We'd initially thought this day would be a 'rest day' in Baldersheim, but then found out about some interesting museums nearby in Mulhouse, Rixheim and Ungersheim. So the plans were rearranged and off we went.

First stop was at the Écomusée d'Alsace outside nearby Ungersheim. We'd first been introduced to outdoor museums in the Nordic countries - where they are often collectively referred to as skansens. (Though we do also think of Sovereign Hill in Ballarat.) This was similar: a collection of typical buildings from villages in Alsace:

 The entrance from the parking lot took us through a gate into a small walled village:

which also has a fortified tower: the Maison Forte:

There are 'typical' farm buildings:

and a doric mill:

Did you notice something on the roof in an earlier photo? And the one of the tower? Some old friends had returned:

The buildings remain a living museum too, with people there still farming and practising other crafts. It was enjoyable to wander round and see this in operation.

Nearby, as part of this complex, there's a small hotel, with some apartments set in traditional buildings, and this included a restaurant:

so we sat outside this:

and ordered lunch:

From this Écomusée, we took the highway 10 km south again to the large industrial city of Mulhouse. The town's history was based on printed cotton fabrics. It's now home to many interesting museums, including a Musée National de 'Automobile, a Musée des Sapeurs-Pompiers, and the Musée Français du Chemin de Fer - the railway museum. We think this is what attracted Les Barker, who we met strolling in that direction. He was over for the day from Wales, with his own chair in case he needed a metaphysical sit-down:

We left him to that museum.

But the museum we had come specifically to see was the Musée de l'Impression sur Étoffes, located on the bank of a canal off the river Ill:

This museum contains a vast collection of printed fabrics from all over the world: India, Persia, Turkestan, Java, Senegal, Japan and so on:

(We kept seeing the strange fuzzy person wandering through the displays:)

As well, there are demonstrations of the machinery used to make these prints:

Some of these are still in operation, and there are regular demonstrations of their work:

The village of Rixheim is then about 6 km east of Mulhouse. We drove here and parked near a huge mural on a house:

before finding our way to the Musée du Papier-Peint. This is set in a mansion in its own little cul-de-sac:

It focuses on wallpapers!  Not your boring repeated stripes, but imaginative scenes, writ large:

and even some very strange trompe l'oeil again - but this time as wallpaper:

There were, again, examples of the machines used to produce these:

After this busy non-day, we headed back to our studio, then out to an up-market restaurant in a hotel complex nearby (the Féerie d'Alsace) for dinner:

We sat in its garden, by a little stream:

and ate well (whatever these were):

This was our final night in France for this trip; for tomorrow we cross into Germany.  The end is getting nearer - bear with us.