Day 14: To ZRH

It was a cool, gray day in Alsace when we made our getaway. I took a last stroll through the town to get the morning pastries – did I mention that I love walking through a European town early in the morning, watching the locals quietly prepare for the coming tourists, or even better, just going about their regular business?

Anyway, our flight back to the US was next morning at 10:00 am from ZRH, and we had reservations at the Novotel by the airport for the night. Colmar to Zurich is about a 4 hour drive, not too bad, with some opportunities along the way for a little fun.

For months leading up to the trip, Tom had been asking if we would be staying close to Mulhouse, or have time to visit there. Mulhouse is close enough to Colmar, but as a visit? It’s an industrial town, and not particularly handsome.

It has, however, the Schlumpf museum, aka City of Automobiles. A friend of Tom’s told him the car museum, a must see. Hey, on the Gray family tour, we try to accommodate everyone. Mulhouse was on the way, and the museum was open Sundays.

One of the impressive aspects of the Schlumpf is that the vehicles were all collected by one guy – I’ve never seen Jay Leno’s car inventory, but I can’t imagine it runs close.

The eponymous Fritz Schlumpf made a fortune (with his brother) in some industry or another, and decided to devote his spare time and loose change to amassing representative samples of all major European cars, past and (up to his death) present (with one exception, to come).

OK, not all major cars, generally speaking French vehicles are preferred, along with Italians, and mixed breeds like Bugatti. I always assumed the latter was of Italian make, and the founder was certainly so, but they’re build in Alsace, making them alternately French and German, depending on when the car was built.

You’ll see a lot of old cars, and if you’re knowledgeable, there will be rarities and surprises along every aisle. And racing fans especially will enjoy the serious collection of old Formula 1 cars lined up like a race. And some really weird vehicles.

For the rest of us…these cars weren’t as drool-worthy as the polished Mercedes we’d seen, with a few exceptions. A lot of them just looked clunky and uncomfortable, because that’s what cars often were back then.

A favorite Stalinism of mine is, “quantity has a quality all its own,” and this is where Schumpf beats the Mercedes museum. This place is *vast*.

The Schumpf doesn’t tell a story the way Mercedes does, but it belts you with sheer numbers. Of course Mercedes has the resources to buy a bunch of classic cars. But some textile magnate? It’s impressive.

The Schumpf does have one other thing that the Mercedes didn’t. Sure, the collection pretty much stops at 1970, and as I said, the Mercedes had several models that I would own ahead of *any* current vehicle.

Except, perhaps the only current vehicle on display at the Schlumpf – the Bugatti Veyron. There’s no “sticker” price on these – if you have to ask…you’ll get a figure somewhere over $2 million. It’ll cost you $20,000 to get an oil change. All that gets you 0-60 in 2.4 seconds. Fine, for $1 million less you can get a Porsche 918 Spyder, and shave .2 seconds off of that. I’ll be in my Veyron. (Stock image shown -- it was too dark to take a good photo).

Lastly: neither the Benz nor the Schlumpf had any American cars, and as neat as some of the Euros are, it’s a glaring omission. Certainly understandable in the Mercedes case, but had Schlumpf included a Stutz Bearcat or Studebaker Hawk? That would have vaulted them over the top.  

Enough cars. We had a quick lunch in the museum cafeteria (I know…) and were on the road. Our touring was done. Our next destination was the Novotel Glattburg, by the airport, where we were scheduled to meet Nonna and Nesta for drinks and dinner.

You know me, though. I like the… the lagniappe? The little extra? We had an hour or two – possibly the hotel rooms would not yet be ready – and we were still on vacation. I could have taken us into Zurich for a stroll along the Limmat, but, at the risk of insulting some friends and relatives, Zurich isn’t a tourist town. It has some serious restaurants and high end shopping – I know the city fairly well – but if you only have an hour, there’s not much to see.

So, instead I nudged the Transit further north, direction Schaffhausen, without much explanation, because it’s better to see this when you’re not expecting it:

The Rheinfall at Schaffhausen may not be the tallest waterfall in Germany (that was back in Triberg, you may recall), and in fact it’s not even in Germany, it’s all in Switzerland. But it’s quite dramatic, and doesn’t require a 45 minute hike.

 I’ve been here a few times, and someday I’ll be back, once more, and get out to that little Island. For now, we allotted ourselves the afternoon wine in the restaurant.

The Novotel is a business hotel, shiny and corporate. I would say sufficient for the task, but the shocking lack of air conditioning knocked it down a bit.

N&N met us in the bar where we were nursing our $12 cocktails. We were going to just eat in the hotel restaurant, but the menu had a $26 price tag by the hamburger, going up from there. Well, that happens at some hotels, I’m sure they get plenty of business expenses revenue. We decided to drive to a nearby Mexican restaurant, where we found…

…a $26 burrito. The truth that we had ignored at the beginning of the vacation is that Switzerland is crazy expensive. It’s their currency, their stable, fiscally sensible currency that does it for them. It’s been steadily appreciating by about a percent against the general western market for, oh, 100 years. Eventually that adds up. To a $26 burrito. We split our entrees and ordered water. Auf Wiedersehen, Nonna & Nesta, auf Wiedersehen, Zurich. May we see you again soon.