Alsace is French with a German accent. Cultures mix across the region’s enchanting, cobbled villages, scenic vineyards, hearty cuisine, and art that’s still as vibrant as the medieval day it was painted.
Standing in the eastern corner of France like a flower-child referee between France and Germany, Alsace has weathered many invasions. Once a German-speaking part of the Holy Roman Empire, it became part of France in the 17th century. After France lost the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Germany annexed it. It bounced back to France after World War I.
All these centuries as a political shuttlecock have given Alsace a hybrid culture. And the city of Colmar is a great home base from which to experience it. Long popular with French and German tourists, this well-pickled old town of about 70,000 is often overlooked and underrated by overseas travelers.
During World War II the American and British military were careful not to bomb quaintly cobbled Colmar. So today Colmar not only survives, it thrives with 15th- and 16th-century buildings, distinctive cuisine, and rich art treasures.
Colmar’s Unterlinden Museum gets my vote as one of the best small museums in Europe. It fills a 750-year-old former convent with exhibits ranging from Roman artifacts to medieval winemaking, and from traditional wedding dresses to paintings that give vivid insight into the High Middle Ages.
Matthias Grunewald’s gripping Isenheim Altarpiece, showing a gruesome crucifixion, is the museum’s most important work. Germans know this painting like Americans know the Mona Lisa. The altarpiece was commissioned 500 years ago by a monastery hospital filled with people suffering terrible skin diseases—a common cause of death back then. The hospital’s goal, long before the age of painkillers, was to remind patients that Jesus understood their suffering. The many panels led patients through a series of Bible stories culminating with a reassuring Resurrection scene.
At the north gateway to Colmar, a familiar icon may surprise many Americans: a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Colmar is the hometown of Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty (a gift from France to the United States to commemorate 100 years of American independence). Colmar’s Bartholdi Museum describes the creation of Lady Liberty and displays many of Bartholdi’s sculptures. One room is dedicated to the evolution and completion of the Statue of Liberty; she was assembled in Paris, then taken apart and shipped to New York in 1886 … 10 years late.
When you’re ready for a break from museums, it’s time to hit the road. The Route du Vin—the wine road of Alsace—is an asphalt ribbon tying 90 miles of vineyards, villages, and feudal fortresses into an understandably popular tourist package.
The dry and sunny climate here has produced good wine and happy tourists since Roman times, so vineyard-hopping is a great way to spend an afternoon. Roadside dégustation signs mean wine-tasters are welcome. Thanks to Alsace’s Franco-Germanic culture, its wines are a kind of hybrid—distinctly French in style and generally drier than their German sisters.
Riesling is the king of Alsatian grapes; it’s robust but drier than the German style you’re probably used to. Sylvaner—fresh and light, fruity and so affordable—is perfect for a hot day. Pinot gris wines are more full-bodied, spicier, and different from other pinot gris wines. Gewürztraminer is “the lady’s wine”—its bouquet is like a rosebush, its taste is fruity, and its aftertaste is spicy—as its name implies (gewürtz means “spice” in German). In case you really get “Alsauced,” the French term for headache is mal à la tête.
Along with its wine, Alsatian cuisine is world famous. Even vacationers traveling on a shoestring should spring for a fine meal in Alsace.
You can’t mistake the German influence: sausages, potatoes, onions, and sauerkraut. Look for choucroute garnie (sauerkraut and sausage)—although it seems a little hearty and rustic to eat it in a fancy restaurant. Also try sampling Baeckeoffe (a meaty onion-and-potato casserole made with white wine), Rösti (an oven-baked potato-and-cheese dish), Spätzle (soft egg noodles), fresh trout, and foie gras.
For lighter fare, try poulet au Riesling (chicken slow-cooked in riesling wine). At lunch, or for a lighter dinner, try a tarte à l’oignon (like an onion quiche, but better) or tarte flambée (like a thin-crust pizza with onion and bacon bits). Dessert specialties are tarte alsacienne (fruit tart) and Kugelhopf glacé (a light cake mixed with raisins, almonds, dried fruit, and cherry liqueur).
For a pleasing taste of European culture, there’s nothing quite like Alsace. Visitors enjoy a rich blend of two great societies: French and German, Catholic and Protestant—just enough Germanic discipline with a Latin joy of life.
