Like straight out of a fairytale, Colmar is the idyllic town you have always dreamed about visiting. Apparently, it was one of the inspirations for the village as shown in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Colmar lies in the Alsace region of France. The Alsace region is a beautiful amalgamation of French and German influences. Colmar can be considered the smaller quieter cousin of Strasbourg. Both places are well-known for their colorful houses with timber frame panels forming beautiful designs on the houses. This combined with cobblestoned streets is truly a sight to behold. This place was also great for a day trip as it hardly took us two hours by train to reach here from Zurich. Let me tell you more about the places we visited and the things we ate in the beautiful town of Colmar.
We took the 8:59 AM train with one connection in Basel to Colmar and we reached at around 11 AM. Here as well like in Innsbruck, we did not require any public transport as we felt everything was at a walkable distance. We took the scenic route from the train station, crossing through the beautiful Parc du Champ-de-Mars towards the Vieux Colmar area.
As we were getting closer to this area, those iconic colorful houses started appearing. We reached the Schwendi Fountain which was surrounded by beautiful houses and tourists enjoying the beauty of this area.
A man playing an accordion set a beautiful mood for this fairytale experience.
We walked further along Rue De Marchands and saw some other beautiful structures like the Maison Pfister and then onwards to the Saint-Martin Cathedral.
While exploring the dreamy lanes of Colmar (we took a detour from the main streets to just admire the beauty and charm of the bylanes). In one such street, we encountered a very sweet lady at Maison Alsacienne De Biscuiterie who offered us samples of a freshly baked batch of coconut macaroons straight out of the oven. Apparently, macarons are the center stuffed cookies and macaroons are shaped like a dome and filled usually with coconut. So coming back to this incident, when I took one bite of that macaroon I was in heaven. It had a crispy outer crust with a chewy warm center and loads of great coconutty flavour and texture. She also obliged us by letting us take her pic! One of the best parts of a trip is coming across such people who are so friendly and go out of their way to make you feel comfortable. Of course, we had to get a pack of these macaroons which we gobbled up during the rest of the days of our trip and the pack was over before we even reached home lol. It may have been a marketing strategy but I am glad I tried them as they were really superbly delicious.
I had planned to start first at the center of the city and then head towards the attractions closer to the station, so it would be better timing-wise to decide from there when to head to the station. So after having our fill of roaming around the gorgeous bylanes, we headed towards one of the most popular spots in Colmar - Petite Venice. It's a stunning canal lined with more of those signature houses. The bridge that you stand to view this beautiful scene from has cute red locks placed there by tourists from all over the world who have visited there.
Just close by I had chosen a restaurant after a lot of research. Trying to find a place that has some vegetarian options (lacto + ovo) for the Alsace specialties.
The restaurant was called Wistub Brenner and we had some really amazing dishes like the Onion Pie, Bibalakas (organic white cheese with garlic and chives served with crispy caramelized potatoes without ham) and we also tried the local cola drink called Elsass cola.
While others enjoyed French specialties like escargot (snails in a garlic & butter sauce) it was just amazing to relish these vegetarian dishes in a mostly meat-centric cuisine. Tip - Another popular dish to try when in Colmar is tarte flambée, which is essentially a creamy French version of a pizza.
Safe to say that as we did not visit during winter (when Christmas markets are there), a half day was more than enough to explore this scenic town. We could head back to Zurich on time after lunch and I was able to do a few things I liked and had missed out to do on the first day of my trip in Zurich.
We did have the chance to go to Strasbourg also, which on the same train to Colmar was a few stops further (half an hour more). But after having researched many recommended that Colmar was more cozy and less commercialized. And we had an absolutely amazing time there.
Thank you for reading ❤️
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