Favorite towns in the north half of the Alsace wine route?

Brad - You can also venture a little further passed the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg. A half timbered town which you might like located between Colmar and the Château is Kaysersberg-Vignoble. It's a beautiful town that has plenty to offer and has many castle remnants in the outskirt of the town. The town of Sélestat which 30 minutes from Colmar is another half timbered gem that merits a visit. An even closer half timbered town to Colmar is Turckheim.

If you're willing to start further south, Guebwiller might be worth a visit. The most sublime Muscat I've ever had came from there, and the guide on our wine-route tour told us that Guebwiller was the one place that wasn't on our day-tour with her that she would suggest that we visit. We didn't make it--like you, we worked our way north instead.

And I would also suggest stopping in Turckheim. The Francois Baur winery there ended up being our favorite stop. mainly because of the quality of the wines. It's a small place, and at least for our visit on a Saturday morning in June, was not busy.

Next stop after Colmar will be Dijon, so it may be worth considering some towns south of Colmar.

Obernai is very lovely and certainly not to miss to my opinion. Stayed a few years back near Barr, has a very nice market square. From there you can drive to Mont Sainte-Odile for the view over the Rhine Valley. West of Obernai tiny Boersch, very lovely too and off the beaten track the reason I like this kind of places so much. Further closer to Strassbourg I liked the market quare of Molsheim too, really nice, but think there is more to discover in that part of Alsace. Way more south for the same reason as Boersch I liked Bergheim, some 4km from Ribeauvillé.

If cars interest you, between Colmar and Dijon the Bugatti museum "Cité de l'Automobile" in Mulhouse is highly to recommend.

We stayed in Barr 2018. Very pleasant town with the usual Alsatian old town. The forests of the Vosges run to the edge of town. We did some very pleasant hiking in the forests to 3 13th century castle ruins.
We hiked up to Mont Sainte Odile (worth a visit) as we were without a car. It's a fairly long but pleasant uphill hike.
A couple of nice little wine villages close by.
We might have been lucky but the place seemed pretty short on for tourists when we were there in August. Busy enough as there was a couple of outdoor concerts on but not crowded by any means.
We found it a nice slower paced sort of place. Probably lacks the "big ticket" sights to be very popular with tourists.

Thanks for some very good ideas, now I have to digest them into a workable itinerary.