September Holiday: Wednesday, 24.09.2025

At a max of 10 C and nearly constant rain, it was the perfect day to visit a museum, and we knew just which one we wanted to see: The Zylinderhaus, a cars and motors museum right here in Kues, about half an hour‘s walk away. (Clicking on the link takes you to the museum‘s website, also in English.)

Morning view from our room

Of course we were not the only holidaymakers who had that idea, but the museum is large enough and well organised to cope with a good number of people.

Now, most of you know that I am not a car person at all, and so you may wonder what my interest in that particular museum was. Well, it is about much more than cars and motorbikes; it is also about our recent past and how the availability of individual transport changed our society and culture forever. Last but not least, it is also about some of the people who made it all happen.

My favourite part of the museum was the ground floor. There, a whole row of shops is set up like a high street in a small town where you can walk past a clothes shop, apothecary, village shop, café, toy shop, kiosk with magazines and cigarettes, post office and more. Each and every one of those shops is lovingly put together, with wallpaper, lamps, doors and windows to match, and everything is original, down to the last detail. In short, it‘s like time travel, and although I wasn‘t around yet in the 1950s or earlier, I still saw lots of things I remember from my childhood and youth in the 70s and 80s.

Bleyle was a producer of knitware and other close just down the road from where I live!

My sister and I played with a miniature shop, too; ours was handmade by our granddad for his children when they were little, i.e. my Mum and my late uncle.

Our grandparents had an orange telephone, too, but without the German eagle!

And besides not being into cars, I do appreciate the style and design of classic cars and motor bikes. The ones presented on the two upper floors were all in excellent condition, some of them so rare that according to the information provided, they are the last known of their kind still existing.

Some come with personal stories of their owners and the journeys they undertook in that car. It was all well done and really interesting.

That would be my car!

I well remember police cars looking like that.

Before leaving, we browsed the shop but didn‘t buy anything. 

Back at the hotel, we had coffee in our room and then spent the rest of the afternoon resting and reading. For a change of scene, we didn‘t eat at the hotel but went to the restaurant about 10 minutes from the hotel, where we‘d been on Sunday evening.