What a wonderful way to be immortalised!

Quote from: joe cassidy on Yesterday at 11:18:52 AMFrench dustbins are named after Eugene Poubelle, the civil servant who introduced dustbins to France

When we first went to France we used to refer to the Citroen 2CVs as "dustbin cars" - because most of them were grey and had corrugated bits on them 

I'm not sure I even saw one on the road this time.

Quote from: Ali Smith on Yesterday at 01:40:22 PMI'm not sure I even saw one on the road this time.

Even the last built would be over 35 years old now.
I suspect that, only being made of rather thin metal in the first place, most of them have long since succumbed to the dreaded tin worm by now.

The only 2CVs you will see in Paris today are those offering sight-seeing trips for tourists.

We enjoyed our brief visit to Paris, but it was time to move on. As I mentioned before we were to travel from the nearby Gare de l'Est. Here's a picture of part of it I took the previous evening. It's about twice the width you see here.



We had a while to wait, but in due course we were allowed onto our train. We were in the front coach, so I had a moment to snap a photo'.



As you can see it's an Inter-City Express operated by Deutsche Bahn. According to DB's own website it appears to be an ICE3neo, with a top speed of 320km/h. The train's ultimate destination was Stuttgart.
At the appointed hour, off we went past various business premises and housing estates but were soon out in the countryside. The ride was very smooth; the sensation of speed came from looking out of the window and thinking "that looks interesting...didn't it!"  As we headed east, we noticed architecture becoming gradually becoming more Germanic in style. After an hour and three quarters the train slowed to a halt at it's first stop, Strasbourg, some 252 miles from Paris. We got off here and crossed, by underpass, to another platform to await the train to our final destination.
The train was delayed by about ten minutes, but it did arrive and we clambered aboard. I would guess the coach was from the 1970's and had the unusual, to British eyes at least, feature of compartments without doors. These had not been removed by human agency whether official or unofficial; it was clearly part of the design.
In some ways this was the best part of the whole journey from Bedford as we were going slowly enough to be able to see things properly and we passed through several towns with stations. Beyond these towns to the west were the Vosges mountains dotted with castles (or bits of them) including Château du Haut Koenigsbourg, or at least I think that's what it was. This mixture of French and German in the name of a single thing like a castle or a street is common in Alsace and confusing because it's hard to guess how to pronounce it but is very much a part of the character and history of the region.
Our enjoyment of the scenery was somewhat impaired by the gloomy and occasionally wet weather allied with the dirty windows.
Despite the dismal state of its fenestration, after ¾ of an hour or thereabouts the train passed through the suburbs of the town of Mulhouse (pron. Mull-ooze or something like that) and stopped, conveniently, at the station. This was as close as SNCF was going to get us to our destination so we got off and went in quest of a taxi. The train itself had further to go; Basel in Switzerland I believe. It might be all of 20 miles.
To find a taxi, we first had to get out of the station, which led us over the footbridge. Crossing this structure revealed the platform canopies.



These must have been quite impressive in their day, whenever that was. I've noticed before a French fondness for quite elaborate concrete constructions to perform rather mundane tasks. The station gives the impression of being larger than it needs to be, in fact the whole line from Strasbourg is like that. Over to the right of the picture there is grass growing in the track.
We found a taxi which took us to Hôtel Bristol by what seemed like a rather circuitous route but it may be that he simply wished to pull up in a side street rather than the main road. He only charged us €8, which can't be much different from the £7 fare from home to our local station.
We checked in and went to our room. To get there we used...



Yes! Schindler's Lift*

The room was extremely pleasant. As we were staying for several nights we unpacked properly and then headed into town. Our first port of call was not any place of refreshment but the tourist office. There were many objects of interest here, the strangest of which was this:



It is what it seems: a motorcycle wrapped in wool. There was a notice explaining it and in good English too but I still couldn't see why. It is quite amusing though and maybe that's enough reason. It looks like an early BSA Bantam, but I suspect it's a French machine from a similar era.


*If any Jewish person reading this is offended then I apologise but it is not my intention to make light of your people's sufferings.

Excellent narrative, Ali

Quote from: Ali Smith on Yesterday at 04:34:27 PMThe ride was very smooth; the sensation of speed came from looking out of the window and thinking "that looks interesting...didn't it!" 

I remember the first time I went on a TGV on the Bordeaux line - the only indication I got of the speed was when the line ran beside a autoroute and we were going about twice as fast as the cars.

Quoteafter ¾ of an hour or thereabouts the train passed through the suburbs of the town of Mulhouse (pron. Mull-ooze or something like that) and stopped, conveniently, at the station. This was as close as SNCF was going to get us to our destination

Aha, I did wonder if you were heading to the Cité du Train.
I went there in its previous incarnation, the Musée Français du Chemin de Fer, and very good it was too.


 

We stayed at the Grand Hotel Bristol, opposite Colmar railway station several years ago, do you think your Hotel Bristol at Mulhouse is part of the same chain? Both now look like very smart boutique hotels.

Tim

The French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine became part of Germany in 1870 after the Franco-prussian war and were returned to France after the 1st world war.

The Germans marked their presence by building magnificent railway stations in a teutonic style such as Metz and Mulhouse.

They also left their mark by imposing right hand running which continued for a long time even after the liberation of Alsace/Lorraine.

If you go home via Mulhouse try to find time to visit tha national railway museum and the car museum

I think some people are getting ahead of me, as I thought they might.
 
@Moonglum, the Bristol at Mulhouse appears to be part of the Contact Hotels group. The website for the Bristol at Colmar makes no suggestion of being a member of any group. Bristol is a fairly common name for an hotel. We passed one walking between Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est. There's also a dead posh one on Rue de Faubourg St-Honore.

I seem to recall hearing of one in one of the grandest resorts of belle epoque Europe. Somewhere like Nice or Baden-Baden. The sort of place Queen Victoria or Edward VII stayed at.

I still eagerly await the appearance of 'Popeye' Doyle in this tale

I'm really enjoying this. Keep em coming!