Colmar Travel Guide

Lying in the heart of the vineyards of the Alsace, Colmar is a city made for strolling. Its famed historic district is now a vast pedestrian zone, with medieval houses boasting carved gables, galleries with beautiful bannisters, and doors adorned with lavish woodwork.

Things to see include the Heads House (1609), the 15th-C. Customs House, the Dominican Church (with its famous "Virgin in the Rosebush" by Martin Schoengauer).

The old "Quartier des Tanneurs" (Tanner's District) and the "Petite Venise" (Little Venice) canal district are great places to walk through cobbeld streets past the old houses. The Unterlinden Museum, which houses the prized Issenheim Altarpiece by Mathias Grünewald has a good collection of sculptures and paintings from the Middle Ages.

Colmar is the birthplace of Bartholdi, creator of the Statue of the Liberty, and is home to the Bartholdi Museum.