Colmar (Kolmer in Alsatian) Europe’s best destination in 2020, is rich with art and history. It is the capital of Alsatian wines, it boasts the intimacy that a medium-sized city can offer, with the addition of stunning architectural marvels.
You can’t remain insensitive to its charm, its half-timbered houses, its old bourgeois Renaissance mansions, its canals, its flowers, its medieval churches. To do that would be a crime! It is in short the idyllic Alsace, a not-to-be-missed visit, a certain conception of the Alsatian art de vivre. Don’t postpone your visit any further!
The Gîte Alsacien is within 15 km of Colmar.
Colmar used to belong to the Decapole (a military and financial alliance of 10 Alsatian free cities within the Holy Roman Germanic Empire, from 1354 to 1679).
It has kept from that period a monumental ensemble that was well-renovated: the Unterlinden Museum (one of the most visited museums in France, host to the famous altarpiece of Issenheim), the picturesque Petite Venise, the quartier des tanneurs (the tanner district), the collégiale Saint-Martin (an impressive Gothic church), the maison Pfister, the Bartholdi museum (he was born in Colmar in 1834 and made the Statue of Liberty), the toy museum or the Koïfhus (the old custom house).
Colmar is also the gourmet city thanks to its restaurants, both many and refined, its Winstubs (winebars, offering the best of the traditional Alsatian cuisine: baeckeoffe, sauerkraut, spätzle, flamenküche, munster, knack, presskopf…)
It is finally the city with plenty of events and celebrations, of culture and tradition, like the Christmas markets, that will undoutedly turn your visits into unforgettable moments. A town definitely worth visiting for anyone keen to discover the gentle Alsatian lifestyle !