Where's Bertie? He's at a free Stellplatz in Schwetzingen, where he also spent two nights on 17/18 June 2018. (Exact location: 49.37788, 8.5581)
Weather: Grey, showery and cool start, but clearing to a warmer, dry and sunny-ish afternoon.
Driving along the A6 Autobahn in the vicinity of Sinsheim one cannot miss the large building with various planes, including a Concorde and a TU144 (Concordeski), on its roof:
The motorway runs the other side of the building, closer than my position when I took this snap.
It's the 'Auto & Technik Museum, Sinsheim' and having driven past a couple of times before (heading south both last summer and this), today we paid a visit.
Arriving around opening time, we perused the site map and learnt that the place is formed of two huge exhibition halls, with the planes being housed on the roof of the second one. Figuring that Concorde was going to be the most popular attraction once the place got busy, we didn't follow almost every one else in the logical direction of Hall 1, but headed straight for Hall 2 and, once there, went straight up onto the roof.
Big planes, big roof. They're set at the take-off angle of 15 degrees, which makes for a surprisingly steep climb from the rear door up to the cockpit.
A good call! We didn't have to queue and even had both supersonic jets to ourselves for at least some of the time we were in each. I imagine it would be frustratingly cramped once a queue has formed.
Once finished with the 7 or 8 planes on the roof, there was a choice for getting back into the Hall below. You could walk back down the stairs, or go down a slide that originated inside one of the aircraft. Mick took the stairs...
See the slide coming out of the side of the plane and entering the roof of the building? It was quite steep on the final descent.
The rest of the museum was absolutely packed full of a whole variety of planes, trains and automobiles (plus military displays, bikes of the push and motor variety, organs, chain saws, sewing machines...).
Vintage Cars in Hall 2, with various planes suspended above
Having learnt our lesson from the Mercedes-Benz museum, we went armed with more food today, but it was unnecessary as once we had finished in Hall 2 we were able to return to Bertie for a quick lunch.
We had already acknowledged that we were likely to spend less time in Hall 1, no matter how interesting it was, due to reaching saturation point. That happened at around 3.30pm, by which time we had also seen:
Vintage American cars, including all sorts of racing cars (drag, stock, hot-rods, Nascar), with planes suspended above
The outside military display, being mainly tanks
Tractors, with planes suspended above (you may have noticed there were planes suspended *everywhere*)
Perhaps the best illustration of the eccentricity of the place: a military display, with planes suspended above, and with a sizeable pipe organ in the background. Along the mezanine to the right was an extesive display of Airfix-style model planes and tanks.
Some of the exhibits had interactive features that could be activated by paying a Euro. Those included various self-playing musical instruments, so as we were walking around there would suddenly be loud umpah or dancehall type music nearby.
Museum visiting is always a tiring activity (far more than going for a long walk) and after six and a half hours, we were flagging. A portion of chips at one of the on-site eateries rounded off our visit nicely.
As museum entry fees go, this one was up there as one of the most expensive we've visited (€16 a head), but we came away feeling we'd had value for our money. For anyone with even a passing interest in planes or cars, it's worth a visit. I think that our guidebook has hit the nail on the head in saying that whilst huge and stuffed with exhibits, the whole place does have the jumbled feel of an amateur presenting a private collection. I was picturing the owner/founder as being an eccentric chap.
We could have stayed the night in the car park (there are dedicated motorhome bays for the purpose), but driving the half-hour over to Schwetzingen means we get to be stationary for two nights before heading up to Mannheim early on Saturday morning. For a Stellplatz with such mediocre reviews, it's every bit as popular as it was last year, but we were fortunate enough that there were two spaces remaining when we arrived.
Weather: Grey, showery and cool start, but clearing to a warmer, dry and sunny-ish afternoon.
Driving along the A6 Autobahn in the vicinity of Sinsheim one cannot miss the large building with various planes, including a Concorde and a TU144 (Concordeski), on its roof:
It's the 'Auto & Technik Museum, Sinsheim' and having driven past a couple of times before (heading south both last summer and this), today we paid a visit.
Arriving around opening time, we perused the site map and learnt that the place is formed of two huge exhibition halls, with the planes being housed on the roof of the second one. Figuring that Concorde was going to be the most popular attraction once the place got busy, we didn't follow almost every one else in the logical direction of Hall 1, but headed straight for Hall 2 and, once there, went straight up onto the roof.
A good call! We didn't have to queue and even had both supersonic jets to ourselves for at least some of the time we were in each. I imagine it would be frustratingly cramped once a queue has formed.
Once finished with the 7 or 8 planes on the roof, there was a choice for getting back into the Hall below. You could walk back down the stairs, or go down a slide that originated inside one of the aircraft. Mick took the stairs...
The rest of the museum was absolutely packed full of a whole variety of planes, trains and automobiles (plus military displays, bikes of the push and motor variety, organs, chain saws, sewing machines...).
Having learnt our lesson from the Mercedes-Benz museum, we went armed with more food today, but it was unnecessary as once we had finished in Hall 2 we were able to return to Bertie for a quick lunch.
We had already acknowledged that we were likely to spend less time in Hall 1, no matter how interesting it was, due to reaching saturation point. That happened at around 3.30pm, by which time we had also seen:
Museum visiting is always a tiring activity (far more than going for a long walk) and after six and a half hours, we were flagging. A portion of chips at one of the on-site eateries rounded off our visit nicely.
As museum entry fees go, this one was up there as one of the most expensive we've visited (€16 a head), but we came away feeling we'd had value for our money. For anyone with even a passing interest in planes or cars, it's worth a visit. I think that our guidebook has hit the nail on the head in saying that whilst huge and stuffed with exhibits, the whole place does have the jumbled feel of an amateur presenting a private collection. I was picturing the owner/founder as being an eccentric chap.
We could have stayed the night in the car park (there are dedicated motorhome bays for the purpose), but driving the half-hour over to Schwetzingen means we get to be stationary for two nights before heading up to Mannheim early on Saturday morning. For a Stellplatz with such mediocre reviews, it's every bit as popular as it was last year, but we were fortunate enough that there were two spaces remaining when we arrived.
I think I could have spent a week in there.
ReplyDeleteIt's not possible to do justice to the place in a day. My one (slightly non-sensical) complaint was that there is just too much there - and they're opening a third hall in September.
DeleteIt's a pity they don't do a 'two-day - one hall a day' ticket.