All Museum'ed out
So, been a while since I last updated, but plenty of museums in the past week, and I have to say a bit museum'ed out ...
I had visited Salzburg on what was a cold and wet day (it wasn't much fun), and spent plenty of time going through the castle, reading all about how powerful religion was in what must be a spectacular castle in its day. Also visited the Mozart museum, what a waste of money ...
Then it was onto central Germany, staying at Mannheim on the Rhine River (near its merge with the Neckar). An high-speed ICE ride was had (although the trip from Munich only went up to 199km/h, but a subsequent ride to Stuttgart went at 280km/h for some minutes). Mannheim itself was a bit of a bore, and as I only used it as a base I didn't really see much of the city at all.
I was in that part of the world to visit the Technik Museums, two collections based in Sinsheim (an hour's train ride from Heidelberg) and Speyer (1/2 hour from Mannheim). At Sinsheim, these inclueded preserved aircraft like the two supersonic passenger jets, the Concorde and the Soviet Tu-144. Those are the most amazing museum pieces mounted on stilts on the roof of the museum building. Lined up side by side they're actually quite different, at least in the detail.
Plus, there's everything from Jan Ullrich's1997 Tour de France winning Pinarello to MichaelSchumacher's 1996 Ferrari, set-up appropriately toreflect his brilliant maiden Ferrari win at Barcelona,and Paris-Dakar bikes of different eras. Then there'sthe production cars - there's the F40, F50 and Enzo,911s, Countachs, old Maybachs ... steam engines, moreaircraft, and ... the list goes on. They must have a huge F1 collection as they also have a few significant F1 cars of the 90s that didn't make it, like the Benetton B194 and B195 (Michael Schumacher's title-winning cars in 1994 and 1995), as well as the Jordan 191 (again a Michael Schumacher car, this one in which he made his F1 debut - financed by Mercedes-Benz - in 1991).
It took me a whole day to go through the Sinsheim museum, and the next day went to Speyer. This one had a Lufthansa 747-200 mounted on stilts, about 60ft up in the air (which makes it look extremely imposing). I think this is just one of 3 747s preserved in a museum, the others being the prototype at Seattle's Museum of Flight, and the other is the Qantas one at Longreach. Even though I'd flown so many 747s and amassed 48 flight hours within this month alone, this was an experience. This one is truly special, you not only get to walk right through it but they also stripped out the cargo bay and back from the R4 doors, and you can see all the hydraulic lines, wires, and all the stuff you don't see when you step on an in-service 747. I spent quite some time climbing in and out of the cargo bay and just looking at various things, even the rear pressure bulkhead.
At Speyer there were also an Antonov An-22 and a German U-boat, both fascinating bits of equipment. All in all the Technik Museum is not to be missed for any of us interested in transport and engineering, especially its history.
Then I headed to Stuttgart for the Mercedes-Benz museum. Unfortunately, it was closed, as Mercedes (or, DaimlerChrysler, as they like to be called nowadays) is readying the brand new museum for opening in a few months. They did however still keep part of the old museum open, with the early Benzes still on display (I believe they're replicas, the real thing stored elsewhere), and some racing machinery as well. Still quite interesting, especially as the old museum is located inside the DaimlerChrysler HQ ... there really are no cars other than DaimlerChrysler products inside the gate!
Oh, and one interesting anecdote. If you're a DaimlerChrysler employee working at the Stuttgart HQ, you could save your legs walking if you rode a bike. That's right, for a car company, the bottom level of the covered car-park closest to the factory gates is actually for bike parking only, equipped with U-rails and PIN access. A sight for sore eyes ...
And so that was really it for the motor museums, still, a lot of cars, planes etc in a few days is a lot to take in.
I didn't count on arriving into Brussels last Saturday and seeing a vintage car rally pull through the Grand Place ... again there were some interesting machinery especially the Tour de france support vehicle of 1953, and a few steam engined cars.
Anyway, till next time ...
I had visited Salzburg on what was a cold and wet day (it wasn't much fun), and spent plenty of time going through the castle, reading all about how powerful religion was in what must be a spectacular castle in its day. Also visited the Mozart museum, what a waste of money ...
Then it was onto central Germany, staying at Mannheim on the Rhine River (near its merge with the Neckar). An high-speed ICE ride was had (although the trip from Munich only went up to 199km/h, but a subsequent ride to Stuttgart went at 280km/h for some minutes). Mannheim itself was a bit of a bore, and as I only used it as a base I didn't really see much of the city at all.
I was in that part of the world to visit the Technik Museums, two collections based in Sinsheim (an hour's train ride from Heidelberg) and Speyer (1/2 hour from Mannheim). At Sinsheim, these inclueded preserved aircraft like the two supersonic passenger jets, the Concorde and the Soviet Tu-144. Those are the most amazing museum pieces mounted on stilts on the roof of the museum building. Lined up side by side they're actually quite different, at least in the detail.
Plus, there's everything from Jan Ullrich's1997 Tour de France winning Pinarello to MichaelSchumacher's 1996 Ferrari, set-up appropriately toreflect his brilliant maiden Ferrari win at Barcelona,and Paris-Dakar bikes of different eras. Then there'sthe production cars - there's the F40, F50 and Enzo,911s, Countachs, old Maybachs ... steam engines, moreaircraft, and ... the list goes on. They must have a huge F1 collection as they also have a few significant F1 cars of the 90s that didn't make it, like the Benetton B194 and B195 (Michael Schumacher's title-winning cars in 1994 and 1995), as well as the Jordan 191 (again a Michael Schumacher car, this one in which he made his F1 debut - financed by Mercedes-Benz - in 1991).
It took me a whole day to go through the Sinsheim museum, and the next day went to Speyer. This one had a Lufthansa 747-200 mounted on stilts, about 60ft up in the air (which makes it look extremely imposing). I think this is just one of 3 747s preserved in a museum, the others being the prototype at Seattle's Museum of Flight, and the other is the Qantas one at Longreach. Even though I'd flown so many 747s and amassed 48 flight hours within this month alone, this was an experience. This one is truly special, you not only get to walk right through it but they also stripped out the cargo bay and back from the R4 doors, and you can see all the hydraulic lines, wires, and all the stuff you don't see when you step on an in-service 747. I spent quite some time climbing in and out of the cargo bay and just looking at various things, even the rear pressure bulkhead.
At Speyer there were also an Antonov An-22 and a German U-boat, both fascinating bits of equipment. All in all the Technik Museum is not to be missed for any of us interested in transport and engineering, especially its history.
Then I headed to Stuttgart for the Mercedes-Benz museum. Unfortunately, it was closed, as Mercedes (or, DaimlerChrysler, as they like to be called nowadays) is readying the brand new museum for opening in a few months. They did however still keep part of the old museum open, with the early Benzes still on display (I believe they're replicas, the real thing stored elsewhere), and some racing machinery as well. Still quite interesting, especially as the old museum is located inside the DaimlerChrysler HQ ... there really are no cars other than DaimlerChrysler products inside the gate!
Oh, and one interesting anecdote. If you're a DaimlerChrysler employee working at the Stuttgart HQ, you could save your legs walking if you rode a bike. That's right, for a car company, the bottom level of the covered car-park closest to the factory gates is actually for bike parking only, equipped with U-rails and PIN access. A sight for sore eyes ...
And so that was really it for the motor museums, still, a lot of cars, planes etc in a few days is a lot to take in.
I didn't count on arriving into Brussels last Saturday and seeing a vintage car rally pull through the Grand Place ... again there were some interesting machinery especially the Tour de france support vehicle of 1953, and a few steam engined cars.
Anyway, till next time ...
posted by Kin-Yat | 05:08
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