Colmar was next up on our itinerary. It’s not far from Strasbourg, smaller by quite a bit (around 75,000 compared to Strasbourg’s 470,000) and definitely oriented more toward tourism. The city has many beautiful and interesting buildings, built in the half-timbered style common in much of Germany, and an excellent museum. It’s also got a lot of tourists. We also used our stay here to visit the town of Riquewihr – a lovely small town in the mountains that is definitely oriented to tourism and not much else.
Sights Seen Walking Around Colmar
Lots of beautiful old buildings line the streets of Colmar. I might point out that many of these pictures were taken early in the morning; hence, not many people in the streets. Later in the day, Colmar lived up to its reputation as a tourist destination.
Musée Unterlinden
This museum is the crown of Colmar’s cultural scene. It contains quite a number of religious art works, including an altar triptych that is quite famous. Now I have to say that religious art is not my favorite genre, so I wasn’t exactly deeply interested in much of this, but one aspect did catch my interest – polychrome wood carvings and statues.
But first – the cloister. Laurie and I have become fans of cloisters and try to visit nearby ones as we travel. Cloisters were places of walking mediations in convents and monasteries and it seems to us that they maintain that sense of peace and tranquility to this day. Musée Unterlinden is housed in a former convent and many of the rooms are located off this cloister. We walked around it several times, then found a couple chairs to sit in and enjoy the sun for a while.
Wood Carvings from the Renaissance (1500s)
The museum has a number of religious statues carved of wood, with their original paint. These are from the 1500s generally and yet they look as if they were done recently. I really liked these. The beauty of these carvings and their color really caught my attention.
One more interesting exhibit…
There was a room titled “Cave Alsacienne” which I had to check out, of course…
Wine presses! From a long time ago…
And wine barrels! Almost big enough to hold enough wine for our entire trip here.
Doors and Windows
I guess some folks still like seeing my doors and windows pictures, so here are a few from Colmar and Riquewihr (more on Riquewihr below).
Note the date above the door: 1561. Many doors have the date the building was constructed. I think this is the oldest door we’ve seen.
This door is about three feet high. Wonder who lived there!
Riquewihr
Riquewihr is a beautiful town in the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. On the second day in Colmar we drove to Riquewihr. Here’s a picture of the town from a hill overlooking it.
Riquewihr has a challenge that many beautiful small towns in France – and other countries – have: there is not much to keep the town alive except tourism, so the town has to promote its charm. But when the tourists come, much of the town’s charm is lost in a sea of people. This is the main street of Riquewihr on a day out of the tourist season; think what it must look like in August:
But there’s hope: keeping in mind our friend Ken’s observation that “The well-traveled path is not very wide,” we walked away from that main street. These pictures are all taken not more than a five minute walk away from that main drag.
Laurie and Mary admiring the flowers.
We enjoyed visiting Riquewihr but honestly, it’s good for a couple hours only. And in August? No way.
A Surprise: They Make Wine in Alsace!
Our first night we had dinner in a nice little restaurant in Colmar marked by two things. One, Laurie and I had a main course of pork that ranks among the best pork we have ever had. Maybe it wasn’t the pork so much (though it was excellent) but the sauce! Holy cow: some sort of mushroom gravy. Honestly, if I could have ordered a bowl of just that, I would have.
Two, we had a really nice Alsace wine with dinner, and realized the cooperative that sold that wine was about a twenty minute drive from Colmar. So the next day, off we went.
This cooperative sold wines from many local wineries, under the cooperative’s label. They had some wine:
Lots o’ wine…
Mary and Gilles checking out the selections Sorry for the slightly fuzzy picture; maybe too much wine tasting?
Here’s a crazy thing about this wine-buying: the nice wine we’d had at dinner the night before? $7.50 per bottle.
That’s it for Colmar and the area around it. We are glad we came to Colmar and saw Riquewihr. It’s a new and interesting area for us. Not sure it’s on our list of places to re-visit, though. Next post: Mulhouse and its amazing museums.