Colmar; Tuesday, 10 May, 2022

Another lie in and a late breakfast before I headed back out into Colmar to visit some of the museums that had been closed on Monday.

My first stop was the Natural History Museum which whilst being a small museum manages to cram a lot in. On the entrance floor there is the usual natural history collection of stuffed animals from around the world, as well as a room dedicated to the animals of the Alsace region. Upstairs there is a gallery on Egyptology, Ethnography and a small geology collection.

From the Natural History Museum I headed over, via a quick visit to look inside the covered market, to the Museé Bartholdi located in the house where the sculptor was born. The museum shows a number of models and working examples of sculptures that Bartholdi created during his lifetime, including several of his most famous work – the Statue of Liberty.

Having looked round the museum I wandered back through the narrow lanes and streets of the old town, stopping off at St-Martin’s Church to have a look round there before making my way back to the Dominican Church to see if that was open today.

It turned out it was so I had a quick look around that – the building itself stopped being a church several centuries ago, being at various times a grain store and a general empty space. Today it’s a gallery showing a couple of important religious works.

Having taking in the church I headed round the corner to a group of very nice restaurants, where I was able to grab an outside table for a relaxed lunch in the sun.

After lunch I had a bit more of a wander around the centre of Colmar before it was time to head back to the hotel, grab my bag and start the journey home by heading back to the station to catch the train back over the border to Switzerland.

It wouldn’t be the true SNCF experience without at least one delay, and so it was almost inevitable that my journey would get a delay, thankfully in my case it was only 10 minutes, unlike the poor passengers on the opposite platform whose train to Luxembourg was delayed by nearly 4 hours. At the last minute as I was purchasing the ticket on the app I decided to splurge the extra couple of euros and go first class, and I was glad I did. The train was very full as it pulled it, and getting a seat in any carriage for the 45 minute journey was going to be difficult, except in the single first class carriage which was empty.

A very comfortable journey back to Basel on the train and then a quick transfer through the station and onto the airport for my flight back to London.