We said farewell to our car today. And not before time. I drove through 3 sets of red traffic lights today, admittedly they were little sets on a straight road, mainly perhaps for pedestrians, but in the previous 5350km I only missed one set of lights and a Stop sign, so I think I must have had enough driving. 5350km in 51 days is over 100km per day, but I think I reached my limit around the 4500km mark and the rest has been hard work.
However the car has been good, and really valuable. I wonder what we will do in Céret next year, perhaps hire for a few days at a time.
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| Ettore Bugatti's personal Type 35 |
We started the day by heading to Mulhouse for the big Decathlon sports store to find Alastair the bulk of the gear he will need for his cycling trip. We bought a bunch of stuff, e.g. side packs, helmet, sleeping bag and so on but some was out of stock so we were advised to go to another Decathlon store not far away. Found it reasonably easily, and it turned out to be a mega Decathlon. Just huge, catering for a wide range of sports, even horse-riding. Yet another collection of gear was assembled, along with a running and cycling top for K, at 3.50 Euro each on super special. I (K) am starting to get quite enthusiastic about cycling around the countryside when we get back to Céret. We are planning to take J’s 2
nd bike back to Céret with us. We tried to sell it earlier this year but were only offered about $70 for what was a very good bike so it seems a better option to take it to Céret with us (within our baggage allowance) rather than buy a good one in France. I might also buy a bike in NZ and take it over when we go next year.
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| The Schlumpf Collection, Mulhouse |
After a pretty successful shopping venture we next tried a nearby electronic superstore and AJ bought an iPod and gorilla tripod for his camera, both of which he had been holding off buying but will need for his trip. It was about 1pm by this time, so we needed to make a move towards the Schlumpf Car Museum which J has been hanging out for since he last saw it in 1982. We spent the next 2 hours having a wander around the 400+ cars on show, with the emphasis being on vintage rather than modern. There were huge numbers of Bugattis including the world’s most expensive model, the massive Bugatti Royale. Plenty of other French cars too, including an excellent selection of 30s to 50s F1 cars.
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| Bugatti Type 57 Atalanta |
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| Bugatti Type 35s |
This left us only an hour to have a very fast look around the centre of Mulhouse. We haven’t been there before and the city centre is very attractive and pedestrian friendly. We pretty much spent the time racing around trying to find a bookshop that sold velo (bicycle) maps of France. Finally got some, plus some maps for ourselves of our part of France for next year. Back to the car late, beating a meter maid by just one car, and raced off to find the Peugeot Eurolease people at Basel airport, which was where we were to deliver the car back at 5pm. Arrived 50minutes late but no problem. Had 2 minutes to spare to jump on the bus back to Freiburg. At 22€ each for a 50min ride it was pretty expensive. Found ourselves a tram back from the city centre to our residential neighbourhood and dived into the supermarket for some much needed food restocking before finally arriving home at about 8.30pm.
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| Final display on the 207 |
The highlight of the day for AJ was the arrival of the hammock he had ordered from Amazon by courier earlier in the morning, and the buying all manner of bike gear for his trip at Duathlon.
