Colmar, France

We spent last weekend in the town of Colmar, France, which is in Alsace. France just seemed like a nice destination for Valentine's weekend and I was lucky enough to spend the time with all 4 of my boys (Bexar and Rocky came too.) We also wanted to get out of town during Karneval/Fasching, which gets a little crazy around here! So, we braved the weather and made the 5 hour trip to a very cute little rental right in the heart of town, (yay for off-season pricing!) We spent Saturday morning taking a self-guided walking tour of "oldtown" Colmar (i.e. wandering around with no real agenda other than to see the beautiful buildings and check out a few of the historical sights.) Here are Brennan and Patrick in front of St. Martin's cathedral, Maison Pfister (one of the oldest structures in Colmar) and the Ancienne douane (old customs house.)



Here are a photo and close-up of the "House of Heads," with a statue of a cooper to top it off. The cooper was created by Bertholdi, a native Colmarian who also designed the Statue of Liberty. The houses were brightly colored and had beautiful half-timbering, and there were some very pretty canals.



After naptime we walked around the corner to Little Venice and enjoyed more beautiful canals and did a little shopping. We bought some Valentine's desserts and of course baguettes, cheese and fruit. We were so fortunate that most people in this region speak German as well as French, so we got by pretty well. We thought we didn't know any French but it's funny how many words we manged to come up with when under the gun. Brennan can now say "au revoir," although he sometimes throws in a "tschuess" and a "bye-bye" just for good measure.



On Sunday morning we drove a little way up the "Wine Route" to visit Le Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg, a beautifully restored 12th century castle. It was huge and we had a lot of fun exploring, but as usual only a limited portion was open to tourists. It was still a great time though and the winter scenery was spectacular. We had read that there was a cafe here (I even manged to ask where it was in French!) but from what I gathered from the (French) response, it is either closed for the season or closed for good. Here is a wall painting of St. George slaying the dragon, as well as "before and after" drawings of the restoration.





On our way back to Colmar we kept our eyes peeled for anyplace to eat that would be open on Sunday. We weren't holding out hope, but amazingly we saw a little chalkboard outside of a house indicating food for sale. We walked into this woman's courtyard and rang the bell. She popped her head out of a window, then came out to open up her little cafe/kitchen and serve us lunch! Another couple came in, and then struck up a conversation with us to figure out where we were from since we were speaking English to each other and German to the French woman. It was a fun little stop and we ended up with a couple bottles of Alsatian wine to boot. On Sunday afternoon we hit up the Toy Museum for Brennan. We made a beeline for the train display, and here is a shot of him watching them go by, yelling "choo choo!"



We stopped for a local dinner and I finally got the French onion soup (although I guess in France it's just "onion soup") that I had been craving. Patrick went out on a limb and ordered the meat pie of the valley, which was pretty much meatloaf in a pie crust. On Monday we stocked up on baguettes, cheese and pears for the ride home and headed out. Definitely a very fun weekend, despite the cold!