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We had headed north from the borders into the Parc Regional des Ballons des Vosges - a beautiful region of rolling hills and twisty roads in the Alsace region of France. The Dutch couples had a motor home which towed a trailer, and an MGB and an MGA - the trailer was mainly for the MGA. They were touring around without much of a plan - like us - until they found an area they liked, where they would stop, set up camp and use the camp as a base for daily driving excursions.
The day after we arrived we were invited to join them on a trip to a local car museum in Mulhouse. Turned out this was the Musee National de l'Automobile, which houses the Schlumpf Collection - an incredible collection of just about every type of Bugatti, along with many other - mainly French - classics.
This hill was one of two that we drove up (and down) which have been used as mountain stages in the Tour de France. This invariably means a great surface and lots of space at the top. The good roads are also given away by the amount of Lycra wearing French cyclists either slogging up the hills or flying down them. Throughout the trip we had a healthy respect for these guys, gave them plenty of room, cheered them on and received waves and shouts of 'bravo' in return!
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We drove into this campsite in the small town of Giromagny to find this gathering of Dutch MG enthusiasts - so of course we had to stay!
Of course it was not long before the rides began!!
En route to Mulhouse.
And one of the pictures taken from the MGA!
Nice reflection!
Ah - the open road...
Amazing collection of Bugatti, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Renaults and many other 'top of the range' classic cars.
The famous Bugatti Royale.
You get to dress up as a Womble and drive this one!
Tessa posing!
No - your eyes do not deceive you - this IS a 3-wheeler, but the third wheel is not central - and sadly, it is British!!
Futuristic bubble car.
Racing Bugatti hall - many of the cars had Goodwood Festival of Speed stickers and numbers on, I had probably seen them running up the hill a few weeks before!
Another priceless collection of race Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Lotus and others.
More up to date race cars, fronted by a Prost and a Renault powered Williams F1 car.
Of course they had the classic British sports car!
That evening we did two trips up to the Ballon D'Alsace, giving rides to our new friends. Possibly the best road of the trip, we met no cars in either direction.
You can tell from the grins that we have just returned. I have some great on-board footage of one of the runs. However, this was one of the occasions that showed up how bad the 'standard' brake pads we had fitted were when used 'heavily'!
Top of the Ballon D'Alsace - the road to the top was twisty hairpins in the trees, opening out to sweeping bends at the top.
And of course once we got to the top, we had to go back down the other side - and then up the next one...
...and up and down the next one, and the one after that - of you get the idea - a fantastic region for driving!
