Tourist information -
Mulhouse
Thirty-five kilometres south of Colmar, Mulhouse
is a large sprawling industrial city. It was Swiss until 1798 when,
at the peak of its prosperity (based on printed cotton fabrics and
allied trades), it voted to become part of France. Even now many
people who live here work in Basle in Switzerland. It is also the
home city of Alfred Dreyfus, the unfortunate Jewish army officer
who was wrongly convicted of espionage in 1894 . Not having much
of an old town, it is no city for strollers, but there are four
or five unusually good - and rather unusual - museums in the town
and its vicinity that delve into the region's manufacturing past:
wallpaper , firemen, railway, automobiles and fabrics are all given
their platform. There is also a jazz festival in August, which is
a good time to be out partying in this town, with concerts in the
museums, the schools and the streets, as well as in the cafés
and bars.
Close to the gare SNCF , just along the canal to
the right, is the excellent Musée de l'Impression sur Étoffes
, 14 rue Jean-Jacques Henner (daily 10am-6pm; printing demonstration
on Mon, Wed, Fri & Sun at 3pm; 36F/?5.49). It contains a vast
collection of the most beautiful fabrics imaginable: eighteenth-century
Indian and Persian imports that revolutionized the European ready-to-wear
market in their time; silks from Turkestan; batiks from Java; Senegalese
materials; some superb kimonos from Japan; and a unique display
of scarves from France, Britain and the US. Also in the centre,
the Hôtel de Ville on place de la Réunion contains
a beautifully presented history of Mulhouse and its region in the
Musée Historique (daily except Tues: May-Oct 10am-noon &
2-6pm; Nov-April 10am-noon & 2-5pm).
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