Colmar, France

I stumbled across this fairytale town while scrolling social media one day, and two things caught my attention: 1. The photo. It was a place like nothing I’d seen before. The beautiful coloured gingerbread houses, nestled along a stunning river. 2. The caption said, “La Petite Venise - Little Venice”. And given my love of all things Italy, I knew I had to go.

I actually went and changed our whole itinerary around so we could fly out of France, and go to this stunning town. And I was so glad I did.

Where is Colmar

Colmar is on the eastern side of France in the Alsace region (known for its white wines), which is also on the German border. It’s a beautiful little town with both French and German influence, known for its incredible Christmas markets. If you’re going in December, just know you’ll have to book early. Because even though I had never heard of this place before, it’s definitely still a very popular European destination.

When to go

High season is definitely late November and all of December leading up to Christmas (they get almost half their annual visitors arrive in the month of December) - and you can see why. The town is completely decked out in the most extravagant displays of trees, lights, wreaths, nativity scenes - you name it, they’ve got it. We went in early November, as they were setting up the decorations, and it was still so beautiful and not nearly as busy. But to see the work council puts in to these displays is also just as impressive. They have teams of people working round the clock to transform the town. We were there for 3 days and saw full displays come to life in the space of hours. It was truly impressive. They must have it down to a fine art, by now.

Obviously, the town is still stunning in Summer and other times of the year, so you can’t really go wrong. But oh, those Christmas decorations were just next level!

How long should I go for?

We incorporated Colmar into a little western France trip, that included Strasbourg, but for the town itself, I would say it’s worth 1-2 nights (maybe 3 if you want to include a day trip out to the wine country). You can basically walk the town in the old town in the space of the morning, go drink some hot chocolates and get your obligatory photos in the “Insta-worthy” spots. But I’d dedicate one day to doing a ‘wine country day trip’ that incorporates Ribeauvillé and Riquewhir.

Getting there

We took the train from Strasbourg to Colmar, which is only around an hour. One surprising thing I should note, is that I assumed the train from Strasbourg to Colmar would be relatively inexpensive, but it did actually blow me away the price (purchasing it the day of). So just keep that in mind if you want to factor it into the budget, I think it was around $60-70Euro one way. But I’m sure you’d be able to pre-purchase it for a cheaper rate, if you know you can make it to the train station on time.

You could definitely hire a car without much trouble, especially if you want to drive out to the wine country region yourself, rather than take a tour. But if that’s your plan, I would just make sure your hotel has parking options (or there is reasonable public parking that’s not too far away).

Where should I stay

If you’ve come all the way to Colmar, just branch out and get yourself a hotel or Airbnb in the old town. The train station is just outside it and you can either pay to get a taxi ride into the centre, or just walk. It’s more than likely not going to be more than a 10-15 minute walk from the train station (old town isn’t that big in the scheme of things) - but it might be worth seeing if your hotel does transfers from the station.

I ended up picking an Airbnb that I would consider one of the best of our trip (if not THE best). Our wonderful host Catherine even picked us up from the train station and made sure we were comfortable and knew where everything was. There were so many things I loved about this room that I wouldn’t have even considered when booking, like the heated towel rails, regular sized shower etc. But by far, the best thing about this Airbnb was the view from the balcony. Oh My God. It was so beautiful and the reason why I stress you should book in old town, is so you wake up among those coloured gingerbread houses. They’re next level.

What to do

This next suggestion is a very touristy one, but at least it is not very expensive - a gondola ride down the main canal. I’ve linked the company we used, there’s only 2 or 3 options, but these guys were highly rated by our Airbnb owner.

It’s a half an hour ride down the canal, where the driver talks you through some of the history of the old town and points out different things to see. You’re in a boat with 8 people max and they run every 15 minutes. It was a cool experience, as well as easy and relatively cheap. You don’t have to book ahead of time, just rock up and they’ll fit you into the next time slot (you might wait up to an hour for your time, if it’s particularly busy).

Places to Eat

I have just a couple of recommendations here, which we really enjoyed. The first is La Stub which specialises in the region’s typical tarte flambee. From memory, it was the wife who served guests, while the husband was in the kitchen. They were lovely people and it was obviously a little family business that does one thing, and they do it well. You do need to book ahead of time though, because their restaurant is small and often full of people. We got lucky and they fit us in when we called an hour ahead of time, but they definitely turned people away while we were there.

I’d just add here, that while you’re walking around old town, definitely factor in some time to just try out the sweets stores. A lot of them do beautiful crepes or nougat that are just to die for. We also loved picking up pastries and quiche to eat as we wondered.