Colmar, France // An Enchanting Town of Alsace

Holly VanBerkel
Oct 25, 2018
2 min read

October 24, 2018

Colmar, France - Region of Alsace

Colmar was one of those adorable towns I kept seeing all over travel blogs as I'd search for new places to explore... which obviously meant we had to go to it. Also due to the fact that it's been said to be one of the towns that inspired the town in Beauty and the Beast!! How could we resist that??

It was roughly a 3 hour drive from Frankfurt, so it was an easy decision to check it out during one of Lucas's days off. Although, the interesting thing about this town is how it's quite along the border of Germany, giving huge Germanic influence to the feel and architecture of little #Colmar. While we definitely commented how it felt French, it also felt quite German with its half-timbered buildings, the specific "look" to all the buildings, and even the foods we found. We later listened to a Rick Steve's podcast (Lucas's favorite) and learned that although this #Alsace region is in fact French and produces delicious Riesling wines, it's incredibly different to the Rheinland Riesling wines found in Germany. So obviously we had to check out all the unique wines and foods this area had to offer!

There was a cute area (more like a large street) called La Petite Venise - while still very different to Venice, it had a similar feel from its adorable look of the buildings, terraces and canal running through. On the same Rick Steve's podcast, he described it as "cute enough to be edible", which I could not agree more! The buildings honestly looked like something out of a movie the way the colours popped and how animated the buildings stood. I'm so glad we ventured off to this unique area of France.

Also, little tidbit for you... Colmar is the town where sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was originally from, and who created the original Statue of Liberty. So as we drove into town, we saw a huge replica standing tall in the middle of a traffic circle, which the town created in memory of Bartholdi's 100th death anniversary. So random!