Things to see in Colmar

Colmar lies in central Alsace, between the Vosges and the Rhine and roughly between Mulhouse and Strasbourg. Its historic fabric records several centuries of religious, civic and commercial life. Canals, merchants’ houses, churches and museums sit within neighbourhoods once shaped by market gardening, tanning and regional trade.

Water, trade and old neighbourhoods

Petite Venise follows the River Lauch in the south-east of the city. Rows of coloured houses line a route that extends from the Ancienne Douane towards the Turenne and Saint-Pierre bridges, passing the Quai de la Poissonnerie. Before Colmar expanded, market gardeners lived near these waterways and brought produce to the market halls.

The covered market preserves part of that trading story. The large hall stands between the Quai de la Poissonnerie, rue des Écoles and rue des Tanneurs. It opened in 1865 and was designed by Louis-Michel Boltz, also the architect of Colmar’s municipal theatre. Its position close to the Lauch once allowed growers to deliver produce by flat-bottomed boat.

Nearby, the Tanners’ Quarter is largely made up of timber-framed houses dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Tanners both lived and worked here. The district underwent major renovation in the early 1970s, but its tall traditional houses still recall the trade that gave the streets their identity.

Colmar’s former customs house is known as the Koïfhus, or Ancienne Douane. Built in 1480 at the meeting of Grand’Rue and rue des Marchands, it combined two roles. Taxable goods were stored on the ground floor, while the upper floor hosted meetings of the Décapole, the federation of ten Alsatian imperial towns. After the French Revolution, the building had several uses, including a chamber of commerce and a Catholic school.

Houses and churches

Maison Pfister marks the transition between medieval and Renaissance architecture in Colmar. It was built in 1537 for a hatter whose wealth came from the silver trade. An octagonal turret and wall paintings of biblical and secular subjects distinguish the exterior. The house takes its present name from the Pfister family, who cared for and restored it between 1841 and 1892.

The Collégiale Saint-Martin was built between 1235 and 1365 and is a major example of Gothic architecture in Alsace. Restoration work revealed remains of an earlier church on the same site, dating to around the year 1000, along with evidence of later extensions. Although often called Colmar’s cathedral locally, it held cathedral status for only a short period.

The fourteenth-century Dominican Church has a plainer mendicant character. Fires damaged it repeatedly over the centuries, and Baroque decoration was introduced in the early eighteenth century. Its principal work is Martin Schongauer’s Madonna of the Rose Bower.

Museums and collections

The Unterlinden Museum occupies a convent founded in the thirteenth century. Its holdings include late-medieval paintings and sculpture, led by the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald.

The Toy Museum occupies a former neighbourhood cinema and grew from Georges Trincot’s donation of two thousand toys. Its displays include Barbie dolls, with an example dating from 1959, and around 150 model trains. Among them is a Pacific 231 Britannia locomotive model weighing more than 35 kilograms and measuring 1.4 metres.