Colmar; Sunday, 08 May, 2022

I booked an unpleasantly early breakfast slot for the Sunday as I wanted to make most use of the day taking in the surrounding countryside on the Kut’zig bus. This is an open-top minibus service that runs at the weekends in the summer months from Colmar to a number of neighbouring towns and villages in the winegrowing region of Alsace that surrounds the city. The bus only runs every 90 minutes and with so may different towns to visit you need to be on the first bus of the morning at 08:30 to really get to see everything.

The bus heads out of Colmar, bus the replica Statue of Liberty that sits on the outskirts of town – in memory of Colmar born Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi who designed the Iconic gift to the US from France. After passing the statue and the edge of the towns small airport the bus heads out into open fields and vineyards before climbing up through a couple of small towns and reaching it’s northern most point as Ribeauvillé. I hopped off the bus here to have a look around the town.

I had a long wander round the incredibly pretty streets of the town, taking in the views of the three castle ruins that top the neighbouring hills and look over the town centre. After spending quite a bit of time exploring the town I headed back to the bus stop in time to make the next bus of the day. I stayed on the bus as it passed through the neighbouring small village of Hunawihr as it didn’t look like there was a lot there and instead continued on to Riquewihr.

If I though Ribeauvillé was pretty I was in for a shock with Riquewihr as it managed to crank the prettiness scores up still further, with it’s tightly packed town centre climbing up a steep hill to remaining fortifications at the top of town. I took the easy option for exploring the town by taking the petit-train that was due to depart from behind the town hall just a few minutes after the bus arrived. The train starts by heading up into the vineyards on the hills above the town to take in views over and down into it, before returning back down to town level and driving through some of the lower parts of the town centre. With the Petit Train tour finished I had a bit of a wander through the town, heading up to the very top of town and the Upper Gate and fortifications, before it was time to head back down the hill to pick up the next Kut’zig bus.

The next stop round was Kayserberg. Where the bus drops you off it doesn’t look all that impressive as it’s outside what would have been the towns fortifications and is today just a large tree-lined car park, but a few steps inside the old town and you are once again treated to a fairy-tale town centre, which alongside the half-timbered buildings and impressive church tower is complemented by a medieval fortified bridge, a very pretty stream, and standing just above the town the ruins of a castle.

I spent a long time exploring the town and then heading up to explore the castle and to take in the views from the top of the tower. In fact I was so taken in by the views that I lost track of time and only realised what time it was when I saw the bus I was aiming for pulling away from the bus stop from the top of the castle tower. With the bus missed I knew I had another 90 minutes in Kayserberg so after finishing off looking round the castle I headed back down into the centre of town and stopped at one of the very pleasant outdoor cafes for a light lunch and a beer to while away the time before I headed back over to the bus stop to continue my journey.

From Kayserberg the next stop on the bus route was Turckheim, but as this was accessible from Colmar by both bus and train I decided to skip getting off here as I’d be able to come back here on another day, so instead I stayed on the bus round to the town of Eguisheim. Like Kayserberg where the bus drops you off really doesn’t do the town justice as it’s a carpark on the edge of the old town, but a few minutes walk and you are inside this almost circular old town centre, set with a palace and chapel at its heart, and round the edge concentric rings of streets of half-timbered houses. The outer lane running between buildings that to one side sit on the site of the former forticiations.

I spent quite a bit of time looking round Eguisheim and in the end had to gently jog back to the bus stop to make sure that I didn’t miss the bus to continue on my journey. From Eguisheim the next stop was at the highest point on the tour at Voegtlinshoffen where there are views down onto the flat plains that run out from the hills and mountains of Alsace into the Rhine valley and across into Germany. As that was pretty much all there was to see I decided to stay on the bus and continue on round to complete the loop back into Colmar, arriving back a little after 6pm

I had a little bit of a wander around the bit of Colmar near the station, taking in the Water Tower and Court of Appeals as I intended on catching the last Kut’zig of the day to do a complete loop to be able to take photos of some locations that I’d missed earlier in the day. I think the bus driver was a little surprised to have someone catching the last bus from Colmar. In the end it turned out that I was the only person who wanted the last bus of the day and it was just me and the driver the whole way round the route, there was nobody to pick up at any of the stops. Consequently with the bus running ahead of schedule she very kindly gave me a couple of extra impromptu photo stops where I was able to get some stunning views of the hills and valleys at dusk.

We eventually pulled back into Colmar a couple of minutes before 9 and I headed back to the hotel to grab some snack food from the hotel shop, have a drink in the bar and then turn in for the night.