[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