A Day in Colmar, Alsace

Fair to say, a brief visit to a city gets only a small part of its flavor, and that’s especially so when it’s a town like Colmar, in Alsace, that’s 1200 years old and reached the height of its influence centuries ago.

It’s also the site of our One-Clue Mystery this week, solved by George G.

We visited the historic core, with its timbered houses and quaint streets, many dating to the 13th and 14th centuries. It’s easy to forget there’s a modern town surrounding it, with nearly 70,000 residents! Perhaps another day…

Our guide parked near Colmar’s ‘Little Venice,’ on the River Lauch. It looks lovely now, surrounded by pleasant cafes and terraces, but for most of Colmar’s history it served as a sewer for the town’s butchers, tanners and fishmongers. With its branches, it’s visible almost everywhere in the historic center.

When the town marketplace was enclosed in the 19th century, it was built right up to the edge of the river so that local produce could continue to come in directly.

As we walked around the streets, we began seeing these little plaques attached to the sidewalks. Our guide told us we’d understand soon, but waited to tell us the meaning when we turned the corner and saw this building, and the courtyard behind it.

The statue is the work of one of Colmar’s native sons, the sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, whose best-known work is, of course, the Statue of Liberty.

Just at the edge of town, we encountered another Bartholdi statue; this one is of Jonannes Roesselmann, Provost of Colmar, who died in 1262, defending the city against soldiers of the Bishop of Strasbourg. Which tells you something about the turbulent past of today’s quiet places.

Colmar was first mentioned in monastic documents in 823. By 884, it was important enough for an event that seems today like a bad joke: The Carolingian Emperor Charles the Fat held a Diet there.

By the middle of the 13th century, it had become a free imperial city, meaning it was self-governing, and owed its rights to the emperor rather than to a local feudal noble. It was already, by that time, an important market center and a center for wine-making. With all that, it was only natural that they would fancy themselves ready to have a cathedral.

And so, as you can see in this view down an alley, they collected funds and built one, dedicating it to Saint Martin of Tours, and asked to have a bishop named.But, although it’s located on Place de la Cathedrale, it’s never had a bishop and never officially been a cathedral. While the real reason may be lost in the mists of secular and public struggles, the story I like best is that when the town elders found out how much it would cost to support a bishop and his court, they said “No thanks” and moved on.

While it still doesn’t have a bishop, it does have a lucky stork nest!

While Colmar clearly knows its value as a tourism destination, it’s not a one-trick pony. Its other life is as the self-proclaimed “capital of Alsatian wine. One of its qualifications for that role is its microclimate: it’s one of the driest towns in France, with less than 24” of rain a year.

That’s the result of its location near the Vosges mountains, which cause clouds moving in from the west to rise, and for much of their moisture to condense and fall over the mountains, leaving the lower slopes dry.

Along one of the branches of the Lauch, whimsical sculpture.