While Amanda and Noah were getting ready, Emmie and I took a short walk in Colmar to our recently re-parked car. We eyed several bakeries before deciding to stop at one where we split a croissant and brought back a giant meringue treat for Amanda. We also charted out our walking path for the day as our first agenda item was seeking out Colmar’s Old Town area, including the Covered Market and Little Venice boat rides.
Along our walking route, Emmie was fascinated by water and birds (not pictured.)
Amanda and her huge cinnamon meringue. Given there are only two bites out of it at time of writing, I’m speculating it wasn’t that great.
Colmar was especially decked out as the town was filming a promotional tourism video. The regular flowers were augmented by additional baskets; balloons were numerous; butterfly and other colorful cutouts adorned several local businesses. We stopped in a handful of the stores before boarding a gondola for a tour of the city via its small network of canals.
A preview of the gondola route we were about to take.
Known as Little Venice, we enjoyed a 30-minute, mostly-relaxing ride through the canal. Emmie tried to make it interesting at times by switching between seats and peaking over the edge of the boat, but the water was shallow and gondolier competent giving little reason for real or sustained concern. We were provided a few tidbits about Colmar along the ride but it was mostly designed to take in the scenic sights and sounds of the city.
Noah going under the first of several bridges along the gondola route.
Noah takes a few photos off the side of the boat.
Pretzels were prevalent in Colmar, and it didn’t take us long to pick one up at a local stand near Little Venice. For a single Euro, we split a perfectly salty and perfectly chewy pretzel. We double-down on pretzels less than an hour later via lunch at the Covered Market.
Noah holds his pretzel in front of the pretzel stand.
We ventured just a few blocks from the end of our gondola ride to Colmar’s recently-revived covered market. Closer to Cedar Rapids than London in the spectrum of covered markets, we found a decent smattering of veggies, flowers and baked goods throughout the market. As mentioned earlier, Noah and I doubled down on pretzels while Amanda opted for a ham and cheese baguette. We ate on a bench outside the market for a simple and successful lunch.
After the market, we began the journey to our next destination, Musée Mémorial Le Linge 1914 – 1918, home to an exhibit and actual trenches used by the Germans and French in World War I. Before the drive, we needed to make a restroom stop; after an unsuccessful stop at a public water closet (which Amanda reports was spraying water), we found the most reliable option we could think of for a restroom: a McDonald’s.
Emmie had fun exerting some energy at the Ronald Outdoor Gym Club.
The restaurant included a Ronald Outdoor Gym Club, which provided the kids some entertainment as Amanda and I sampled the international version of ice cream treats; her M&M McFlurry was a bit different than the U.S. equivalent, less mixed and with peanuts; my shake was frothier than those across the pond. We had a little time to spare, anyway, as the memorial was closed for lunch until 2:00 p.m., and we thought we were a short drive away.
Neither the built-in car GPS, nor our personal GPS unit, recognized either the museum name or street address to the memorial. My “detailed” itinerary proved a bit flimsy in this field, as I didn’t include enough detail on my route to make fully usable instructions. In the end, we burned some international data and found the coordinates from the website, which I attempted to transfer to the GPS. Either my transfer or the coordinates themselves were incorrect, as we were sent onto an unnamed dirt road to reach the memorial. After a kilometer or so on the bumpy road, we retreated and reevaluated our strategy to reach the memorial.
We decided to drive to the town of Orbey in hope that we would start seeing signs for the memorial. We did indeed, and followed several signs such as these to reach the memorial.
After paying our entry fee, we made our way quickly through the memorial’s museum, where exhibits were exclusively labeled in French. We then went outside where multi-lingual signs directed visitors through a walkway showing the various French and German trenches, where 17,000 troops were killed in 1915.
The preserved trenches show the huge build-out on the German side including three lines of troops filled with bunkers, blockhouses, and more. Barbed wire, added because of its difficulty to see upon attack, is still in place throughout the line dividing the German and French sides. The entire experience was sobering and we tried to be respectful with our photography at the site.
On our way back to Colmar, I ran into “Au Relais Des Trois Epis,” a quaint little pastry shop in the hill town of Niedermorschwihr. Had we been hungrier, I could have picked out dozens of pastries, chocolates, and jams to sample; in the end, I selected a large praline macaroon and small dinner roll. The roll was for Amanda, while Noah, Emmie, and I split the macaroon. Emmie and I were fans of the treat, but Noah was not.
We ventured into Colmar again, stopping at a few souvenir stores and seeking out ice cream from Sorbetiere d’lsabelle, a recommendation by Rick Steves I had specifically highlighted on our itinerary. The kids and Amanda each had a scoop of strachiatella, while I had scoops of Oreo and cherry, both of which were excellent.
Dinner for the evening became a conundrum. Amanda wanted pasta, but viable options in the area were limited. Furthermore, several of the best-rated restaurants (including one we had starred in our notes) didn’t open until 7:00 p.m., which can be late for the kids. We ended up deciding to walk to the supermarket, only to stop at a burger shop outside the market’s entrance. The burger and fries were above average, if not exactly hitting the spot.
After dinner, Emmie was disappointed the carousel had closed or the evening.
Our walk back to Maison Martin Jund.
We walked Colmar’s streets several times in the evening, starting with our walk for ice cream (and shopping) around 5:00 p.m. At this time, the streets were bustling, with popup vendors serving treats and stores at their busiest; by 7:00, street traffic had thinned significantly, with residents and visitors apparently inside for dinner, whether dining out or at home. An hour later, the main streets were almost void of pedestrians, though eateries with outdoor seating remained boisterous. (The last observation was made during my unsuccessful attempt to get one final scoop of ice cream.)
Tomorrow we visit our fifth country of the trip: Switzerland.
Noah’s Photo of the Day
Noah only took a couple of greenery photos today, during our Little Venice boat tour, but did requested to have his photo taken several times, including this time on our walk back from dinner.
Love the photos on gondola…..
Noah’s pretzel looks very appetizing indeed.