Driveing to Alsace and a visit to Altkirch

Saturday, as expected, started  off wet, not my favorite type of driving weather. We had decided to travel via France rather than cutting across Switzerland. It was a bit further, with about the same amount of Autoroutes.
Once we got clear of Annecy the traffic was not too heavy. We only missed one turnoff - not bad for us On most of the Autoroutes most of the traffic was Trucks. Most were not French ; they were from Germany, Spain, Poland, Russia, Denmark, Italy, Portugal etc. They usually have a special lane where they move at about 100 km/hr, so no real problems. The rain stopped after a couple of hours and we stopped for less than the usual time. The GPS got us to the door of our new apartment in the small village of Heidwiller, not far from the large city of Mulhouse. Most of the places around here have German names, as it has been part of Germany a few times, depending on who had won the latest war. And the buildings have a different, Germanic look.
We have been lucky again; the owners, Jean and Beatrice, were most welcoming and the apartment is luxurious and quite new. We had covered 435 kms over about 7 hours. The village borders the Rhine to Rhone canal, with a lock nearby with a cute old lock keepers cottage.
We got up late on Sunday and drove to an adjoining village where we were told there would be a Rhubarb Festival. And indeed there was, but there was a distinct lack of rhubarb!  It seems it was just an excuse to have a large "Flea Market". We bought only food, but if we lived here we would have got all sorts of stuff. There was a display of older modified/customed cars,trucks and m/bikes, including a 403 and a Renault Fregate.
We did find a restaurant selling rhubarb tart so ordered that and also a serve of, icecream with a delicious meringue covering.
Then we took off for Altkirch to visit a museum of the history and culture of the district, which is only open on Sunday arvo. It was excellent, housed in a very old building with very steep winding stairs. So Valerie was restricted to the ground floor. We saw only one other customer.
We are about to work out what we will do for the next 5 days and watch a little French or German TV.