Day 73: Mulhouse to Colmar

May 1, 2025

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Our big thing for this phase of the trip is to follow the Alsace wine route. That is an itinerary that winds among the wine villages of the Alsace region, between the Vosges mountains and the Rhine.

As the map shows, the route "technically" starts as far south as Mulhouse is, at Thann. But we decided to boot it almost half way up, to Colmar, and to hang out there one extra day, before launching on the route, and ending at Strasbourg.

Yesterday I popped out of the hotel, onto rue de Colmar, to look for some fruit. The street was super active, with people and cars zooming about, and I didn't enjoy it much. But today is May 1, a national holiday, and the street was totally deserted. I liked that better, though it was a bit spooky.

One thing street still had was a mural of Albert Schweitzer on the side of a building. We encountered Schweitzer once before on this tour, when we visited his room at St. Remy. Schweitzer was born in Alsace, at Kaysersberg-Vignoble, a little west of Colmar, in 1875. (Alsace, by the way, is known as Elsass to the Germans. This probably comes from Ell-Sass, meaning seated on the Ill, the river that runs through the region. The territory started out speaking a German dialect but was annexed by France in 1648. Germany took it back in 1870, lost it in 1918, regained it in 1940, and lost it in 1944.)

Albert Schweitzer honoured in Mulhouse. Born in German Alsace he was not always so favourably looked on by the French.

We seem to have turned up in France on May 1 a few times, and always see people selling Lily of the Valley (Muguet) bouquets. In France, May Day is also referred to as La Fête du Muguet (Lilly of the Valley Day), as people traditionally give bouquets to loved ones, especially in Paris… but why? This tradition goes back to 1561. King Charles IX of France was given a lily of the valley flowers as a present on May 1. We assume the people are selling and not giving the bouquets, but it's a little strange, because the people with the flowers by the roadside do not at all look like traditional florists or even market vendors.

While we expect to see ultra cute half timber houses in the wine villages, our route right now passes by fairly normal looking suburban type houses.

Although we are nipping up to Colmar on just a miscellaneous track made with Google maps or cycle.travel, at least for now we seem to be on the famous EV 5, the Francigena. The Francigena runs over 3000 km, from Canterbury down to Puglia.

Over to our right, we could now see the Vosges mountains. It is the east facing slopes of these mountains that help create the Alsace wine region.

We are really impressed with how well the fields are tilled here. The corn is already up, too.

Although we don't expect to see spectacular houses as yet, we are watching for them, and do see bits like this:

We also see various unique towers and turrets:

One phenomenon that we remember well, is that of strawberries being sold from little strawberry shaped kiosks. The one below is directly at a strawberry farm. And they are also selling asparagus. These are commonly blanched (by piling earth around the green shoots). In Germany this is called spargel, and we will be looking for restaurants offering seasonal spargel dishes.

We love to see local agricultural pride.

The strawberries. Not so cheap even here at the farm - 5 euros.

A touch of authenticity added by a (quite late model) deux chevaux.

We stopped to eat our sandwiches near city hall. The town looked like this.

The roads, carrying on into Colmar were ok but not great. Usually we were on a service road like this, beside a larger autoroute.

We could see we were entering Colmar, but what we saw was large maybe late 19th century structures.

In the vicinity of our hotel, nothing too special.

Our hotel was called the Primo Colmar Centre. At about 130 euros per night it is not cheap, and it features the smallest and poorest room we have encountered on the tour so far. For the record, it's 11 square meters, and it makes even Ibis Budget look generous.

Oh well, we didn't come to sit in the room. So we fired up GPSMyCity and set off for a peek at the 11 main sights that they include in their introduction to Colmar. Since we also have tomorrow to do this, I favoured picking just one or two of the more interesting sounding things and going directly to them. That disturbed Dodie's sense of order, especially since in going for example to #7, we would have to close our eyes while passing #4, for example, which could be on the way.

In practice we looked at everything we could see as we walked to our cherry picked destinations. Consequently, as Dodie would have predicted, we might not be able to name everything in our snapshots. But we did have a really good time, and WOW, Colmar has got to have one of the prettiest and largest old towns going!

Tomorrow, to be sure, we will be more organized!

Swarming randomly around Colmar.

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The first walking street, near our hotel. Not really downtown.

These are more about windows than half timbers.

Ok, here are half timbers: colombage in French, fachwerk in German.

Rooflines are also a big part of the style here.

When we started seeing Storks everywhere the other day, it's because Storks are a big thing in Alsace - one of the main symbols of the place.

I couldn't make these talk, let alone repeat.

These postcards illustrate traditional dress here.

Yes, it's all about storks. I have no chance of bringing one of these home!

Of course people were out at restaurants, and also buying up gelato at many outlets. We did not spot spargel on offer, but certainly there was weiner schnitzel!

Although I was somehow freaked on a busy street in Mulhouse, I found this quite fun.

This statue of a 16th century general stands on a fountain designed by Bartholdi, the guy who did the Statue of Liberty. (All decorated for Easter).

This is in the Tanners' district, near the canal.

The canal that gives this its Little Venice designation.

This is the covered market, a sure fire destination for us tomorrow.

This reminded me of New Orleans. It's a restaurant predictably called La Maison Rouge.

This is part of the roof of the Old Customs House, from 1480.

People are reaching and photographing - they are quite into it!

This is Casa Pfister. It is said to be the most well known house in Colmar, built in 1537. Paintings on the facade depict 16th century Germanic emperors.

We dropped in to the Saint Martin church, a welcome refuge from the hot sun, which is a really new problem for us, after freezing for 2 months!

The church was not so special as these things go.

But Dodie always likes the arched ceilings.

Among the candles you could light was Sainte Therese, always one of my favourites.

Back in the street, the sunlight and crowds are quite dazzling.

Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,400 km (1,490 miles)

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Scott AndersonYour experience looks like ours down in Menton today - unseasonably hot, and very crowded. I hope the crowds dissipate tomorrow after the holiday is over - we've never seen it when it's been packed like this.
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2 months ago

Bill ShaneyfeltRegarding the area being ruled by one side and then the other over the hundreds of years:

Had to chuckle a bit... '76-'78 we were stationed near Kaiserslautern and I worked with US Army and local nationals. One of the Germans told of going on travel up north for work, and upon hearing his accent, a guy asked where he was from. "Rhineland Pfalz" he replied, and the other guy in jest said "Where's that?" to which he replied, "Between France and Germany!"

I wish I could say it like he did in his English/German combination. So funny!
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2 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonIt's still hot here at 2130, even though the window is open. Hard to sleep. Hopefully things will settle down tomorrow....unless people are making a very long weekend of it???? Oh shush and go to sleep now Grampy.
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2 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Bill ShaneyfeltSometimes it is hard to tell where one is from when the nationality shifts back and forth so often. Jokes often sound better in a "foreign" accent, don't they?
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2 months ago