Things to do in Mulhouse: museums, historic centre and zoo

Mulhouse works at two scales. On one hand a tight historic centre, walked in a morning, around Place de la Réunion and rue du Sauvage. On the other large technical museums outside the centre, each demanding a full half day: the Cité de l’Automobile, the Cité du Train and the printed textile museum. The city received the Ville d’art et d’histoire label in December 2008 and counts seventeen buildings protected as historic monuments.

The order of visits depends on the length of your stay. Over one day, count a big museum in the morning and the historic centre in the afternoon. Over two days, add the zoological and botanical park, which easily fills half a day with children. Over three days, the surroundings open other options: the Écomusée d’Alsace and the Parc du Petit Prince at Ungersheim, the Grange à Bécanes at Bantzenheim. A simple rhythm works well: a technical museum, some walking in town, a green space.

The Cité de l’Automobile holds the Schlumpf collection. The site presents itself as the largest car museum in the world, and Bugatti holds the emblematic place: the marque acts as the museum’s signature and its models structure the visit. The whole is run by Culturespaces. Allow half a day at least. The exhibition volume cannot be crossed in an hour, and arriving late inevitably leaves rooms aside.

The route breaks down into several spaces: an entrance atrium, the main collection halls, a discovery space showing the car from underneath, activity areas and a section devoted to private collections. Outside, the Autodrome is a track that lets you see cars in motion rather than behind glass. The museum also programmes temporary exhibitions, sometimes technical, sometimes artistic. A bookshop and several catering points complete the site.

The Cité du Train belongs to SNCF heritage and presents itself as the largest railway museum in France. It preserves and displays the rolling stock that marked the history of French railways. The route is not just a line of machines: the staging sets out the vehicles, their uses and the trades that surrounded them. It is the Mulhouse museum that works best with young children, because it is seen standing and moving, not case by case.

Three spaces structure the visit. The Parcours Spectacle presents the machines under carefully worked lighting. The Quais de l’Histoire unfold the collections in a more documentary register. The Panorama Ferroviaire gives an overview of the stock preserved. To these are added experience cabins, guided visits, an escape game and a programme of occasional events, concerts included. A bookshop and a catering point, Le Mistral, are on site.

The printed textile museum was created in 1955, from collections built up in the 19th century. It carries the Musée de France designation and operates as an association. Its subject is textile printing considered worldwide, and not only local production. It is the best way in to understanding the industrial history of Mulhouse, the same history you then read in rue des Franciscains, the old textile quarter of the 19th century.

The collections mix textiles, graphic arts, archives, sample books, machines and industrial equipment, ethnographic objects and decorative arts. The museum therefore works at once as a museum of decorative arts, an industrial and technical museum, and a museum of local history. The permanent route follows a chronological order: indiennes first, then fabrics of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Temporary exhibitions and workshops complete the programme, and the museum has contemporary artists and designers work on its holdings.

Place de la Réunion gathers the city’s old landmarks. The former town hall, dated 1552, is recognisable by its painted and ornamented pink façade; Montaigne praised it in the 16th century. The building today houses the historical museum. The Mieg house, a bourgeois dwelling with painted walls built in 1418, lines the same square. Depending on the season, the square hosts terraces, a carousel, and the Christmas market in winter.

Around it, the centre is walked. Rue du Sauvage is the pedestrian shopping axis. Rues Henriette and des Boulangers keep an older character, rue des Franciscains recalls the 19th-century textile quarter, and rues du Raisin and de l’Arsenal concentrate Mulhouse social life. Two older landmarks complete the walk: the Saint-Jean chapel, of the 13th century, which hosts small-scale concerts, and the Bollwerk tower, a remnant of the fortifications dated 1390. The Europe tower, for its part, marks contemporary architecture.

The zoological and botanical park combines two purposes on one site: an animal park and a botanical garden. It is run by Mulhouse Alsace Agglomération. The tourist office cites it among the city’s historic parks under the Ville d’art et d’histoire label. The botanical part is not scenery: the plant collections and the gardens, from here and elsewhere, are presented for their own sake, alongside the enclosures.

On the animal side, the collections cover several geographical areas: primates, African fauna, South American species, lemurs, and among recent arrivals sloths and tamanduas. The park takes part in European breeding programmes for species conservation and funds fieldwork. Allow half a day, more with young children. It is the outing that takes over when a run of museum halls begins to weigh.

The covered canal market, Quai de la Cloche, is held three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The tourist office describes it as the largest in north-eastern France, with more than three hundred traders. It splits into two sectors: textiles and sundry goods on one side, food and horticulture on the other. There you find fruit and vegetables, Alsatian charcuterie, cheeses, fish and spices from around the world. The site is served by tram and bus, and Vélocité stations are nearby.

Street art offers another reading of the city. Le M.U.R., rue de la Moselle, changes its work every two months. Quai des Pêcheurs, along the Ill, acts as an open-air gallery, with murals by several writers answering one another. Elsewhere you spot letterboxes painted by C215, road signs reworked by Clet and small figures signed Poti. Downloadable routes and monthly guided walks, called Poésie urbaine, give structure to the search.