A self guided walking tour of Colmar uncovers a house with 106 faces, a stolen Madonna and canals built for cabbages. Here's the full route, stop by stop.
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Colmar looks like someone tipped a box of pastel crayons over a medieval town and never tidied up. Half-timbered houses in pink, blue and mustard lean over the canals, geraniums spill from every windowsill, and the whole old town is small enough to cross in twenty minutes.
Colmar's old town is compact, flat and mostly pedestrianised, which makes a self guided walking tour the best way in. Half a day covers the Unterlinden Museum, the Maison des Têtes, the Dominican Church, Maison Pfister, the Koïfhus and Petite Venise.
Colmar first appears in the records in the ninth century, and by 1226 it was a free imperial city, answering to the Holy Roman Emperor and nobody else. Wine made it rich. In 1354 it joined the Décapole, a league of ten Alsatian towns that looked out for each other, and its merchants spent the profits on the showy houses you're about to walk past.
Then the borders started moving. Louis XIV took the town for France in 1673. Germany claimed it in 1871, France got it back in 1918, Germany annexed it again in 1940, and it was liberated in February 1945. Remarkably, the old town came through largely intact, which is why Colmar looks German, speaks French and cooks like both.
Begin at the Unterlinden Museum, a thirteenth-century convent with one very famous resident. The Isenheim Altarpiece, painted by Matthias Grünewald between 1512 and 1516, was made for a monastery hospital whose patients suffered from a disease known as St Anthony's fire. Look closely at Christ's skin and you'll see the same sores those patients carried. It wasn't meant to be pretty. It was meant to say you're not alone.
Next is the Maison des Têtes, the House of Heads, built in 1609 for a wealthy merchant called Anton Burger. Its facade is covered in 106 small carved heads, some grinning, a few looking as though they've just read the bill. Look up and you'll spot a cooper perched on the gable, added in 1902 by Colmar's most famous son, Auguste Bartholdi. Yes, the Statue of Liberty chap. He was born here in 1834.
Around the corner, the Dominican Church holds Martin Schongauer's Madonna of the Rose Bower, painted in 1473, all gold leaf and red roses. In January 1972 it was stolen from St Martin's Church, and it only turned up again in June 1973, when it was moved here for safekeeping.
Here's the Guru Secret. The painting you're looking at is noticeably smaller than the one Schongauer made. At some point it was cut down on all four sides, and we only know what's missing thanks to a sixteenth-century copy now hanging in Boston.
Follow Rue des Marchands to Maison Pfister, built in 1537 for a hatter named Ludwig Scherer, with a wooden gallery, a corner turret and painted walls far too elaborate for a man who sold hats. Colmar's streets are said to have inspired the town in the animated film Howl's Moving Castle.
A minute further on is the Koïfhus, the old customs house of 1480, its roof a patchwork of glazed green tiles. This is where the merchants of that free imperial city paid their dues.
Finish in Petite Venise, where the Lauch slides between rows of candy-coloured houses. Fishermen sold their catch along the Quai de la Poissonnerie. Tanners dried hides in the tall open attics of Rue des Tanneurs. Market gardeners from the Krutenau district floated their produce in on flat-bottomed boats, which is why the covered market of 1865 still has a door on the water.
A Guru Insight for this stretch: come before nine. By mid-morning the Saint-Pierre bridge is a queue of elbows. Early on, you get the reflections, the church bells and the smell of kougelhopf in the oven. The lanes are narrow enough that phone signal and GPS can wobble, so download your route beforehand. Our guide on how to skip the crowds and actually see a city has more on timing your day.
If you'd like the stories read to you as you wander, an audio walking tour of Colmar does exactly that, and here's what you actually get with a MyGuideGuru tour before you set off.
How long do you need in Colmar?
Half a day covers the main route on foot, from the Unterlinden Museum to Petite Venise. A full day is better, leaving time for the altarpiece, an Alsatian lunch and a slow lap of the canals. Stay overnight if you can, as the old town is at its best once the day trippers have gone home.
How do you get to Colmar from Strasbourg?
Direct trains run from Strasbourg to Colmar in around half an hour. From Colmar station it's roughly a fifteen-minute walk to the old town, so you don't need a car. That makes it an easy day trip, or a handy base for the villages of the Alsace wine route.
What is Colmar famous for?
Colmar is known for its half-timbered old town, the canals of Petite Venise and the Isenheim Altarpiece at the Unterlinden Museum. It's also the birthplace of Auguste Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, and a twelve-metre replica greets you at the northern entrance to town.
When is the best time to visit Colmar?
Spring and early autumn bring mild weather and thinner crowds. December's Christmas markets are famous, but expect the old town to be busy. Helpfully, Colmar is one of the driest cities in France, so your odds of a dry walk are good. Find more city guides like this one on the MyGuideGuru blog.
It would be easy to photograph Colmar and leave. But behind the pastel paint there's an altarpiece painted for the sick, a stolen Madonna, a hatter with big ideas and a sculptor who gave New York its most famous landmark. Download MyGuideGuru, pick your theme and let the town tell you the rest.
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