After another round of breakfast at Pension Winzerhaus, we departed Bacharach for two nights in Colmar, France, one of the main cities of the country’s Alsace region. We chose Colmar as our base as Rick Steves described it as the region’s most beautiful city, featuring “French shutters combined with ye-olde German half-timbering.” We divided the three-and-a-half hour drive into three parts with planned stops at a metropolitan German shopping mall and World War II era fort in northeastern France.
The Rhein-Galerie shopping mall in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany.
The modern shopping mall provided a sharp contrast to the trip to this point, with the sweeping landscapes of Iceland and history-laden cities along the Rhine in Germany. We collectively perused a few stores, picking up a handful of dresses for Emmie at H&M and eating gourmet filled donuts before a relatively disappointing lunch at Ichiban, which served both Chinese-style food and sushi.
My favorite find at the mall was the Happy Donazz shop, apparently part of a small German chain with a handful of locations. I’m admittedly easily impressed but was fascinated by the fact they had filled ring donuts. Mine was delicious. Amanda and Noah weren’t as impressed.
Emmie managed to eat an entire chocolate donut without spilling a drop.
We loaded our bags in our rental car and continued our journey toward France. After passing several stands advertising fresh strawberries and juice from local apples, we decided to finally stop in Schweighofen, just a few minutes from the French border. We skipped the strawberries but bought a glass bottle of apple juice. At just €1.45, the large bottle of juice may have been one of our best values so far this trip.
We soon drove into France, only marked by a small signpost along the side of the road. With Germany and France both part of the European Union, there is apparently no need for anything beyond the sign, like passport stamping or customs. As expected, the towns even had the same feel across the border, like Wissembourg where we snapped a few photos.
Our entry to France was marked by this unremarkable sign.
A street of half-timbered homes in Wissembourg, France.
Our main attraction for the day was a visit to Fort Schoenenbourg. Constructed in 1932, the fort was incredibly impressive. After paying and then retrieving our jackets from the car upon the advice of the worker, we made our way down the elevator to the main area of the fort, nearly 100 meters below ground with a permanent temperature around 12 degrees celsius (or 54 degrees Fahrenheit.)
The tour was well organized into four sections: the kitchen, electric plant, headquarters, and combat blocks. Arrows helped guide visitors in the right direction and signs in English, French, and German explained the multitude of exhibits.
Noah stands below soup spoons as large as his head.
Food was divided by blocks for distribution.
Each section of the tour featured numerous interesting elements, offering insight into everything from the way food was prepared to how the fort was powered to the electric railway system to the thoughtful emergency exit. At its peak, the fort had more than 620 soldiers living there on a full-time basis.
At times, the fort seemed endless.
Noah enjoyed the opportunity to climb the emergency exit stairs.
Over two hours, we walked nearly three kilometers exploring the eighty-year-old fort. The fort itself was designed well enough to sustain numerous German attacks but was eventually surrendered as part of a 1940 armistice and used for several years by the Germans as an indoctrination center for Hitler Youth. It remained strong through subsequent battles but was heavily damaged by Germans as they retreated from the building in 1945.
Noah makes a call on one of several phones in the command center.
Ammunition, shells, and ammunition storage were on display throughout the fort.
The French restored the fort to full capacity in 1951 but interest waned as other programs took precedence and it was ultimately abandoned by the military in the 1970s. Thankfully for visitors such as ourselves, a local group stepped up to start offering tours of the fort in 1987 before taking official ownership of the facility in 2001.
Our drive to Colmar took about 30 minutes longer than expected because of bumper-to-bumper traffic around the Alsace’s largest town, Strasbourg. We ultimately had no trouble finding our bed and breakfast for the next two days, Maison Martin Jund. Recommended by Rick Steves, the unique collection of rooms features a homey courtyard and convenient location to Colmar’s old town.
Maison Martin Jund in Colmar, France.
We had decided upon pizza for the night, and the bed and breakfast owner suggested we head a block down the road to Le Petit Schlosberg. We had a bit of a barrier initially determining how much pizza to order, but upon the suggestion of the English-speaking waitress, we ordered two large and two small pizzas. (Too much.)
Amanda and I were slightly underwhelmed by the thick-crust pies, but Noah was most definitely a fan and came close to devouring his entire cheese pizza. He even made a comment during our dining that he’d love to plan a vacation where all we do is eat pizza. Warms my heart. After pizza, we retreated to our room to attempt to start winding things down for the night.
Noah and I made the short walk to Monoprix, a part-department, part-grocery store. As we were staying in one of two “apartment” rooms at Maison Martin Jund, breakfast was not included. Rather than pay the supplement for breakfast, we decided purchasing some for ourselves was the better solution; Noah picked out some cereal; I grabbed some salami, eggs, and cheese; and we found a few portable packages of applesauce for both breakfast and snacking.
The Smarties ice cream bars were a final treat before bedtime.
Bedtime was a bit rough, as both kids had taken late afternoon naps during our drive. We tried getting Emmie to sleep in no fewer than a half dozen configurations before she finally fell asleep on the larger bed by Amanda. We fortunately don’t have a hard start for our morning tomorrow, other than to move the car which can only be in its spot until 9:00 a.m.