Where to stay in Colmar

Hi Alyssa,

We stayed at the Hotel Saint Martin in Colmar with our Eastern France tour group. It was lovely. It is about a .78 mile walk from the train station. Please don’t give Strasbourg short shrift on your trip. The Christmas market there is fabulous. We stayed at the Hotel Cathedrale in Strasbourg which is right in the heart of the Christmas market action. The staff there were wonderful to us. I highly recommend this hotel as well. You are going to have a fabulous time. The Christmas markets in Colmar and Strasbourg are very special. Have a great time!

Loved Strasbourg, so beautiful with wonderful dining too.

We stayed at the Colmar Hotel, 14 Rte de Rouffach. It’s budget friendly and a two minutes walk from the train station. It’s breakfast buffet was very good. We recently spent 4 nights there and it was fully booked each night. If you have a rental car, it has free parking. The room had a safe and small refrigerator, and coffee/tea machines. Little Venice and the historic center are just over a mile from the hotel. On one day we took the train to Strasbourg. My wife and I preferred Colmar to Strasbourg.

One thing we did like in Colmar was the free shuttle (navette) bus that goes around the town. Think of it as a free hop on, hop off bus, but smaller. It only holds about 12 people. It starts and ends its route at the train station and runs 6 days a week. The link gives you an idea of what the bus looks like and there’s also a circuit map. The bus says “free,” “Gratuite” on it. The first time we took it, we rode the entire circuit (20 min) just to see where it went. There are few restaurants near the hotel, so we just took the shuttle to the historic center where there are plenty. One restaurant we enjoyed was Brasserie des Tanneurs.

There are a couple restaurants across from the train station and a small store inside the station if you want a soda or junk food.

We had a rental car and took day trips to some of the picturesque smaller towns in the area, such as Hunawihr, Ribeauvillé, Barr, Obernai, and Kaysersberg. We also visited Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg. It was very impressive.

I stayed at the Ibis Styles Colmar Centre. Nice hotel. Great location. Staff at reception spoke fluent English. Free breakfast. I enjoyed my stay.

https://all.accor.com/hotel/7005/index.en.shtml?utm_campaign=seo+maps&utm_medium=seo+maps&utm_source=google+Maps&BFS=true

Stayed at Hotel St Martin several years ago and would do so again. Very central location and could walk everwhere.

Hotel Le Merechal, on the edge of petite Venise, walkable (for us) from train station. Wonderful restaurant!

Vote #3 for Hotel Saint-Martin! I loved it! I was there in April 2022 and literally right outside the front door the Easter Market was going on! They use the chalets from the Christmas market but decorate with ducks, bunnies, eggs, etc. SO cute! This is also the location of one of the Christmas Markets.

I had planned to go to Strasbourg for a day trip but was enjoying Colmar so much I stayed there for my 2 full days! I am not much of a breakfast eater but their breakfast buffet was really nice in 2022.

I do recommend you go to the Tourist Information across from the Museum (which is EXCELLENT) and get the walking tour brochure. You can follow the DIY tour but then use the QR codes at each point to learn more about the site. Hopefully you will have a cell phone data plan so it will work. I went to the Colmar TI website and see they do have the walking tour in the back of their booklet. It may be just as easy to go get a paper copy as I think it had more information on it than this one does.

https://www.calameo.com/read/007045666de019a48d08c

I do not recommend the tourist train (not sure if it runs in December anyway?) unless you are exhausted and want to sit down for a bit, lol. I had not thought about most of the interesting sights being on pedestrian only streets and the little train is not allowed there either.

I found everyone there welcoming to tourists and at that time of early post-covid travel I mostly heard German as the language from tourists. I had a hilarious interaction with a waiter at one of the sidewalk restaurants near the museum:

In Colmar, seated at a table outdoors for lunch.
Waiter – Talks quickly while handing me the menu
Me - Je ne parle pas francais, I say in my terrible accent.
Waiter - Well, that was my German not my French. Did you want English?
Me - Yes, please I said, laughing.

Food was delicious, wine was too!

I was getting ready to book Hotel Saint Martin but it appears recent reviews mention that the hotel is not what it used to be other than the location. I don't mind worn as long as clean and in good repair.

I don't mind worn as long as clean and in good repair.

Maybe I looked in the wrong places, but I looked for reviews and didn't find any bad ones, At any rate, we found it to be clean and in good repair. A bit worn perhaps, but no more so than me, and I'm not nearly that old.

I was there in April 2022 and did not find it in disrepair. I just read the Trip Advisor reviews and honestly this does not even sound like the same hotel! I'm not sure what to tell you. I find it hard to believe it's gone downhill that much in a year and a half.

Pam and TC, thats what I thought too-so many nice ones here but the Trip Advisor reviews were awful, at least the most recent ones were! Hoping maybe they were trolls or making too much of what I might consider small inconveniences.

"Hoping maybe they were trolls or making too much of what I might consider small inconveniences."

@Christi - I wondered the same thing. I thought having so many very low rated ones in a row was very odd and sent my red flags flying. One mentioned bed bugs and "flea bites" but no one else did which makes me think that was false. The other complaints were strange. I also think this is a hotel that is used on Rick's Eastern France tour so was hoping someone who was on that tour this year would see the thread and post their experience.

editing to add: I did think to go thru the RS Eastern France reviews but did not pick anything up there. I don't know for sure that this was a tour hotel this year. There are 2 comments from the same tour departure back in May that are 2* reviews saying essentially the food was bad and so were the hotels but hotels were not listed.

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/france/eastern-france