My Christmas market visit started at Colmar. We took train from Gare de l'est to Colmar at 9.25 am. The journey is approximately 2 hours 30 minutes. Colmar is one a beautiful town, located in the Alsace region in north-eastern France. The city is a well-preserved old town with numerous architectural landmarks and museums.
Colmar's train station, a very small train station
It can either walk to the town center or take a bus. The town center (old town)is just around 15 minutes walking distance.
The buses are waiting outside the train station
It is quite quiet. Maybe We reached too early.
We crossed the biggest park of the city center, the Champ de Mars. In the alleys, it found two statues, General Rapp and Fontaine Bruat. Bruat Fountain was built in tribute to Admiral Amand-Joseph Bruat. The fountain was the first in Colmar to have a system to stream water.
The Bruat Fountain was covered with Christmas decoration
The park also has some Christmas decoration
The end of the park is the walking street (maybe currently). The walking street also decorated to celebrate Christmas.
The shops and streets were decorated with snow white, Christmas tree, lights and etc
Finally, we reached our first attraction~House of Heads. According to the Colmar tourism website, House of Heads built in 1609 for the shopkeeper Anton Burger. The building is a fine building dating from the German renaissance. The house of heads represented the rich family by decorated 106 heads or grotesque masks on a three-stories bay window, and the gable was decorated with volutes and the statue of a cooper.
House of Heads
We continued our "walking tour" at the Colmar old town, we reached a small square, we saw museum Unterlinden. The museum famous with the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grunewald. The major collections in the museum are the collections of Upper Rhenish medieval and early Renaissance art. The museum, actually was Dominican religious sisters' convent in 13th century and public baths building in early 19th century. However, we not have enough time to visit the museum.
Unterlinden Museum
The house looks nice. It located near the museum.
Continue our journey~~~ The walking street full with Christmas atmosphere. The decoration like falling into a fairy tale.
In front The Dominican Church has a big Christmas tree and temporary children playground. The church is an example of mendicant orders architecture building. The roof and the cloister were damaged by a fire in 1458 year. After that, a baroque decoration was installed.
The Dominican Church
I saw a well, but the history of the well cannot find in any website.
Photo taken at Colmar (before the Saint-Martin Church)
Again, Saint-Martin Church is found on the way to Little Venice. The church is an example of Gothic architecture in Alsace area. Similar to the Dominican church, Saint-Martin Church experienced a fire in the south tower in 1572 and all the roofs were destroyed. After three years, the tower was replaced the original lantern bulb design.
Saint-Martin Church
We had our lunch at market hall at Colmar ( Mache couvert de Colmar). The market building is designed in 1865 and made of bricks with a metal frame. Before the building returns to its original purpose of market hall in 2010, it had been served for several function. Fruits, vegetables, dairy, bakery and other products can find in this market.
We tried tarte flambee. Tarte Flambee is a French dish, considered as a speciality in the Alsace region. The bread dough rolled out to very thin then covered with onion and cheese.
Tarte flambee
Mache couvert de Colmar
Opposite the market is fishmonger's district. In previous time, this area is the place where most of the fishermen and boatmen of Colmar lived.
Little Venice is just at the corner of fishmonger's district. The name given probably come from the original line of the houses on both sides of the river. Little Venice was my last stop in Colmar. After that, we went back to train station and took 2.30pm region train to Strasbourg.
- TGV train ticket (Paris EST- Colmar) per way
- Lunch at Colmar
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