Colmar is the driest city in France, and the Vosges are the reason. The mountains to the west catch the rain coming in from the Atlantic, leaving the Alsace plain in their shadow with some of the lowest rainfall of any French city, and the sunny, dry climate is the secret of the wines and the orchards that surround it. It is a small city of about sixty-five thousand people, the capital of the Alsace wine country, and it has a charm that has made it one of the most visited towns in eastern France.
The old town is a maze of cobbled streets lined with timbered houses in ochre, pink and blue, with flower boxes at every window, and a quarter called Petite Venise, where the Lauch river runs between gabled houses and flat-bottomed boats drift past. The Maison Pfister, a Renaissance house with a painted facade and a wooden balcony, and the Koïfhus, a medieval customs house, are among the finest buildings.
Colmar's great cultural treasure is the Unterlinden Museum, housed in a former convent, which holds the Isenheim Altarpiece, painted by Matthias Grünewald in the early sixteenth century. Its images of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, intensely emotional and disturbing, are among the masterpieces of German Renaissance art, and the altarpiece was made for a hospital where patients suffered from skin diseases, so that the tortured body of Christ would give them comfort. It is a place to give an hour. The town is also the birthplace of Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, and a small version of the statue stands at a roundabout on the edge of town.
For the rider, Colmar is a base and a break. The roads leading to it from the Route des Vins are easy and scenic, but the old town is largely pedestrian, and parking is the challenge, so use one of the underground car parks near the centre and walk. Traffic on the ring roads can be heavy, particularly in the summer and at Christmas, when the markets draw huge crowds.
Fuel, supermarkets, cafes and restaurants are all easy to find. A winstub, a traditional Alsatian wine tavern, is the place for choucroute, baeckeoffe and a glass of crisp white.