Travel Adventures | Tips for Visiting Colmar, France

Welcome to the stunning French city of Colmar! 

Be prepared to have your face melted off with awesome architecture, gorgeous colors, and adorable details! 

Every street is a new collection of beautiful colors! 

You could wander the city all day and your eyes would never get bored!

Colmar is a great city to spend a couple days.

You can easily walk around the whole city center, so it's a great place to take kids. 

They also have a fabulous Christmas Market, so you would have even more to see around the holidays!

As you approach the city from the north, you're going to come to the Rond-Point Liberte...

... where you get to see a mini Statue of Liberty in the middle of a large roundabout. You can pull off to the right and park so you can take some pictures.

I have some really cute ones of my kids pretending to be "Statues of Liver-tary" last Christmas. It was fun to take them to see it, since they haven't seen the Statue of Liberty in NYC.

The Statue in Colmar was sculpted in honor of the 100th death anniversary of Auguste Bartholdi, the artist who created the original work and who was born in Colmar in 1834.

You can also visit the Bartholdi Museum, which is inside the house where he was born. 

It's in the block of buildings on the corner of the Rue des Marchands and Rue Schongauer. It's just one street south of the main Cathedral.

The museum isn't terribly large so it's wasn't bad for the kids. Plus, if you go in the winter it's a nice break from the cold.

[Mom tip - this is a great place for a potty break for the kiddos]

After checking out the Cathedral and museum, you can head down to the Rue des Ecoles to the Covered Market (the building in the top left photo) to browse the local food stalls and grab a bite to eat.

[Another good place for a potty break, though not as clean]

I always love to see the bright colors of a market.

It's interesting, too, because the Market is right next to the river and back in the day, the merchants could bring their goods right up to the Market by boat!

Then you make your way down to "Little Venice" where you can have absolutely gorgeous views from the two main bridges, and take a lovely boat ride on the river!

The most famous bridge is over the Rue de Turenne. You can buy tickets for the boats at the Winstub La Krutenau restaurant. (And they're so cheap - less than 10 euro a ticket!)

We really enjoyed our evening boat ride... I definitely recommend going as the sun is starting to set.

It was magical!

We weren't really expecting that we'd have to duck to get under the bridges! It was kind of funny and definitely a good thing Kirsten and I were sitting in the back. Because "duck your head!" was definitely lost in translation... but thankfully we were able to copy the people in front!

Next is a lovely walk down the beautiful Rue de la Poissonnerie. Where I have two great restaurant recommendations for you, but you'll have to wait for next week!

I decided Colmar needed a separate food post ;o)

Trust me, you'll want to tune in next week for the mouth-watering photos!

I highly recommend Hotel Colbert. The room was so cheap and yet so clean. The beds were super comfy. The service was fantastic.

And it's within easy walking distance to the main areas of the city. 

It's located on the Rue des Trois-Epis and you get to walk past a beautiful flower shop, an atm, and a fabulous park on your way downtown.

(Obviously you walk past a lot of fun things but those were my top pics in order of beauty and practicality!)

When we weren't ooooo-ing and ahhhhh-ing (and photographing) the bright colors of the city, Kirsten and I really enjoyed poking in and out of the variety of antique shops.

Tons of fun stuff to see!

And of course there would be a huge potted fig tree in the park. So French! 

So besides the food, which I promise to tell you about soon, that's my collection of favorite photos and tips about Colmar, France!

If you enjoyed this post please pin it to your "to do in Europe" board.