Colmar vs. Strasbourg

Susan,

After visiting both, I was eternally pleased that I had decided to stay in Colmar, as it's a beautiful smaller town (with scenic canals) and not nearly as busy or crowded as Strasbourg. There are some excellent hotels and restaurants there, and of course the wonderful Unterlinden Museum. I went to Strasbourg mainly to see the magnificent Cathedral, but frankly I was glad to get out of there!

We went to Bruges last year, but unfortunately only for 1 night. Colmar reminds me of Bruges, so I feel like we would like it better than the bigger Strasbourg. Don't want to miss out on another great little town! Thanks for your input!

I have never been to either of those cities, however, I wanted to suggest a few things near by.

Soufflenheim, France, has some really neat pottery places. I wish I would have purchased some of the bigger items, instead of being scared that they would break during our travels. (I will order online) We only visited two of the pottery shops, as we were on a schedule, but I could have spent more time here. This place http://www.alsace-poterie.fr/ gave us a really great understanding of how special the clay there is. He said look for the yellow color on the pottery vs the white. The yellow is hand made and the white is industrial made. The yellow will last for generations. Where the white breaks very easily. The next place had the most vibrant colors http://www.alsace-poterie.com/. The second place did not speak english, but we managed.

We also visited the Lorraine Military Cemetary in Saint Avold. It is the largest WW2 Military cemetary. Over 10,000 men are burried there. We did have an agenda, as my great uncle is burried there. Regardless, it is a very humbling experience. I have never seen such a well taken cemetary. All the graves are in perfect straight lines. The ground are immaculate. It is about 2 hours away from Colmar and an hour from Strausbourg.

I'm sure that you also will not be disappointed with the side trip options from Colmar - good bus connections along the Route du Vin (except Sundays, if that matters), or to Chateau de Haut-Koenigsbourg (best schedules through mid-September), and frequent trains to Strasbourg (looks like Strasbourg sightseeing is open Sundays and there would be less commuter traffic).

Will you have a car? Or using public transport. People on here fall into 3 preference groups:

1 - Stay in Colmar and do Strasbourg as a day trip, it's a very short train ride away. This is what I did and felt it was the right thing for me and I agree with Ken's reasons. I really enjoyed my 2 nights in Colmar.

2 - Stay in Strasbourg and do Colmar as a day trip. Some think there's more to do in Strasbourg and transportation to other places is easier from there than from Colmar.

3 - Stay in one of the smaller towns in that area and visit both Colmar and Strasbourg from there. This works better if you have a car.

Here is a good website to compare the various towns in that area: http://www.planetware.com/france/alsace-route-du-vin-f-a-rovi.htm

Hi Susan - throwing in my 2 cents worth, and I've only walked around in Strasbourg for a few minutes years ago, while waiting for a train change: We were considering visiting the Alsace area this coming summer, and read thru Rick Steve's guidebook chapter. After considering various options, it appeared that either Kaysersberg or Eguisheim, both just a little outside Colmar, would be our preference for a home base, with a rental car.

Fall should be a bit less crowded than the high summer tourist season, in any event. We visited the Champagne region, to the northwest of Alsace, in September one year (honeymoon!) and it was grape harvest season. We were even invited to snip some grapes off a couple of vines. The paved roads among the vineyards all bore muddy tractor tracks at the time.

We've decided to save Alsace for another trip, and this summer will be visiting Brittany instead. summer.

You didn't say if you have a car, or the month of the year-both important. Are you in Europe for only a week-ish? I mainly ask because you should spend as little time on the road as possible if so - maybe only one country.

I thought that both of the cities you asked about had their attractions. I would not want to skip either of them. But Colmar has more nearby charm. Check which end of the Route des Vins has more wineries. If your trip is in summer, I would settle for hiking in the Black Forest and wineries (or wine festivals) in that area.

One of our two-weekish vacations was driving from Strasbourg to Avignon. We had far more to do than we could in the time. We slept in Strasbourg, Ribeauville, Besancon, and Avignon, 3-4 nights each. Michelin 3-stars were L'Auberge de L'ill and Restaurant Pic. TGV back to Paris for flight home. Some sight high points were La Source de la Loue, the citadel at Besancon, the Pont du Gard, and Perouges.

Venturing into Germany, Gengenbach and the nearby Voghtsbauernhof open air museum are an easy trip from Strasburg

Strasbourg is a fairly large city (although the central area is small enough to be walkable) while Colmar is a large town. The nature of the sights is comparable but Strasbourg just has more of it. I would stay in Strasbourg and do one or two day trips to Colmar depending on how much you like it.

Loved Colmar. We stayed for 3 days. Did a morning at Haut Keonigsburg castle, did a day trip to Basel Switzerland. We loved the little village of St Hypolite and Eguishem ( omg I. Am sure that my spelling is so bad right now ). It was a magical area and we loved it. So beautiful.

Just returned from a holiday trip to Colmar and surrounding area. One big bonus for Colmar - there are a lot of charming villages near by, esp. Riquewihr which is a World Heritage site and very popular with French tourists.