Schlumpf Museum?

[ralphedel]

There is a chance my wife and I will be spending a few days in Paris this March and I am inclined to make a pilgrimage Mulhouse to check out the former Schlumpf collection. If anyone has any tips about how to make the 5+ hour trip from Paris, recommendations on where to stay while there, and other things to see in the area, I would be most grateful.

I was originally considering flying to Frankfurt instead of Paris and driving 2.5 hours to Stuttgart for a few days. My 2 sons and I were at the old Porsche and M-B museum a few years ago and I am anxious to see the new ones. The week I might be in Germany the Retro Classics show opens in Stuttgart so that would make 3 major things to do.

Also, as my one son and I discovered on our drive from the Nurburgring where we had stayed a few days and did a number of laps of the track, to Stuttgart, the Museum Sinsheim is right along side of the A6 autobahn, roughly half way from Frankfurt to Stuttgart. They have one of the greatest collections of road cars, F1 machines, military and farm equipment, mechanical music instruments, as well as many different types of aircraft, including both a Concorde and Tupolev TU-144 mounted on pylons over the exhibit halls.

Seeing those 2 planes poking up on the horizon as we approached the museum on the A6 was quite a sight.

We stopped in for a visit on our drive back to Frankfurt and spent a few frantic hours trying to see as many items in the incredible collections as possible.

Thirty minutes further up the A6 toward Frankfurt is the Hockenheimring which has another museum with cars and motorcycles. Next time we’ll stop in there.

Thanks for any advice. Ralph

[herr_oberst]

No advice, but I wish I was goin' with you.

This post will be useless without pix.

[Dottore]

A couple of comments:

1. The museum at the Hockenheimring is IMO not worth a stop unless you are there and have the time. I wouldn't go out of my way for it. It's very small, and mainly has old motorcycles.

2. The Schlumpf on the other hand has one of the most outrageous collections anywhere, and is well worth the trip. Flying internationally to get there your best bet would be a connecting flight to Basel CH. From there it's less than an hour by car. Be sure to leave some time for the museum shop as they sell lots of cool stuff for gear-heads. Not much to do in Mulhouse otherwise IMO...but once you are there you are of course only a few hours from Burgundy, and the finest wine country in Europe. (The region between Beaune and Dijon is one of my favourite areas of Europe.)

[gtilove]

The Schlumpf collection is amazing! When I went there, we were also going to Retromobile in Paris, so we flew into and out of Paris. The only other thing on our agenda was going to Château de Savigny-lès-Beaune. I would highly recommend going to Château Savigny if you have any interest in classic motorcycles, Abarth cars, French fighter jets, tractors ect... All set in, and around a beautiful estate. This place is surreal. It is right in the middle of the Burgundy wine region. (Tip: They sell Château de Savigny wine at a considerable discount in the building you go through to pay the entrance fee.) Here is a website with a map
http://www.burgundytoday.com/historic-places/museums/savigny-les-beaune.htm

This is a link to a few pics:ze Last Chance Garage du 7-8: Ze ChAtEaU oF SaViGnY LeS BeAuNe MuSeUmS

[Kraftwerk]

Schlumpf had the collectors disease for sure, especially when it came to Bugatti's. Almost too many cars!

[Nine17]

I went to the Schlumpf museum back in '93 (it's much nicer now) and combined Porsche and Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart as well as the now broken-up Rosso-Bianco near Frankfurt. There is now a 199 mph TGV on the first phase of the Ligne Grand Vitesse Est which cuts the travel time way down -- about 3 hours and 10 minutes Paris to Mulhouse with no connections if I read the schedules correctly. The TGV service of the SNCF is incredibly good -- I've taken the TGV to the South of France and the special TGV that they lay on from the Gare Montparnasse to the 24 Hours of Le Mans -- the speed and smoothness are remarkable. With the inauguration of the LGV Est you can now probably see the Schlumpf museum as a day trip from Paris; it will be even faster when the second phase is completed in 2014!