[ ITINERARY · THE DISPATCH ]

Two Days in Colmar for Hopeless Romantics Who Refuse to Grow Up

Colmar looks like someone built a town entirely out of fairy tales and flower boxes. Here's a two-day Colmar itinerary for couples who want canals, Alsatian wine, and absolutely zero cynicism.

I went into this Colmar itinerary fully prepared to be too cool for it. A town this pretty, this aggressively storybook, this beloved by Instagram — surely it’s a trap, surely it’s all surface? Reader, I caved within an hour. Colmar is unapologetically gorgeous and it does not care if you find it cheesy. The half-timbered houses lean over the canals in colours like a spilled paint set, there are flowers in every window box, and the whole place smells faintly of warm pretzels and somebody’s cooking. If you’re travelling with someone you love and you can’t enjoy this, the problem might be you.

So drop the cynicism at the train station. Here’s how to do it.

Colmar’s centre is compact and entirely walkable, which is a mercy. Start in the old town and just wander — the streets are the attraction. Hit Maison Pfister, a wildly ornate 1537 merchant’s house, and the Koïfhus (the old customs house). The whole quarter is a tangle of crooked, candy-coloured timber facades.

The headline act is La Petite Venise (Little Venice) — the stretch where pastel houses crowd both sides of the Lauch canal, with little footbridges and flower boxes spilling everywhere. Yes it’s famous. Yes it deserves it.

Here’s the timing trick, and it matters: go at golden hour or early morning, not midday. Around 7-8pm in summer the day-trippers have mostly cleared, the light goes warm and soft on the timbers, and the canal glows. Or beat everyone with a 7am stroll and have the whole thing to yourselves — I did this and it was just me, a baker rolling up his shutters, and a cat. Magic.

You can take a flat-bottomed boat ride along the canal (around €7-8, about 30 minutes). It’s touristy and a bit silly and you should absolutely do it anyway because you’re a romantic now, remember.

If you’ve an hour to spare, the Unterlinden Museum holds the Isenheim Altarpiece, one of the most intense and astonishing paintings in Europe. It’s a swerve from all the prettiness, and it’s worth it — even if your partner pretends they wanted to keep shopping.

Colmar is the capital of the Alsace wine route, and honestly the villages around it are even more storybook than Colmar itself, with a fraction of the crowds. Rent a car for the day, or take the local bus, and string a couple together.

Eguisheim, just 15 minutes away, is built in concentric circles around a castle — you literally walk in a spiral through flower-drowned lanes, and it’s regularly voted one of France’s prettiest villages. It’s tiny and dreamy and you’ll do it in an hour, stopping at a wine cellar (a “cave”) for a tasting. Most growers will pour you several Alsatian whites for a few euros or free if you buy a bottle.

Riquewihr, 20 minutes north, is the other essential — a perfectly preserved medieval walled village that survived both world wars intact. It’s where the village in Beauty and the Beast supposedly drew inspiration, and once you’ve walked the main street you’ll believe it. Pop into a cave for Crémant d’Alsace, the local sparkling, which is criminally underrated and dirt cheap compared to Champagne.

If you have time and a car, Kaysersberg rounds it out — quieter, with a ruined castle you can climb for a view over the vineyards.

	Morning	Afternoon	Evening
Day 1	Old town wander	Unterlinden, boat ride	Little Venice golden hour + winstub
Day 2	Eguisheim + tasting	Riquewihr	Last Crémant back in Colmar

A few honest notes. Colmar gets PACKED in summer and at Christmas (the Christmas markets are genuinely spectacular but it’s elbow-to-elbow). Spring and early autumn are the sweet spot — flowers out, crowds down, wine harvest energy. The town is in Alsace, which has bounced between France and Germany for centuries, so the food is gloriously hybrid: French finesse, German heartiness. You’ll eat very well and roll home very happy.

And here’s my one piece of real advice for couples: don’t over-plan it. Colmar isn’t a checklist town. The best thing we did was nothing — sit on a bench by the canal at dusk with an ice cream and watch the light fade on the houses. It costs nothing and its the bit I remember most.

Go in the evening light, drink the Riesling, ride the silly little boat, and let yourselves be sappy about it. That’s the entire point of Colmar.

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