Alsace: Strasbourg, Colmar and Eguisheim

Alsace region of France is well known for its villages with colourful architecture providing a fairy-tale look. My wife’s research on Instagram brought Colmar and Eguisheim into our radar. Strasbourg was the capital city of the Alsace region and the main attractions were the villages of Colmar, Eguisheim, Riquewihr, and Ribeaubille. Considering our short trips, we decided on visiting Colmar and Eguisheim with Strasbourg as our base. We were planned to head back from Zurich as the prices were on the lower side with my friend residing there acting as an added incentive.

Our flight to Strasbourg was in the early morning on a Sunday from London Stansted airport. Incidentally it was the day when the clocks moved forward so we had the extra hour of daylight. We took a mid-night bus ride from Victoria and camped at Stansted airport for a few hours through the night. The clock change helped and in no time we were in the air and on the way to Strasbourg. It was a short one hour flight followed by a train ride from the airport to the city centre. We were not in the mood to walk yet so we took a cab to our hotel close to the town centre.

Strasbourg

Starsbourg was a proper big city, a notable feature of which was the trams plying. A look at it told us what was in store for us in the region. There were some beautiful, colourful buildings mostly of similar architecture. Our plan was to hang out in Strasbourg till around 4 PM and then proceed to Colmar. The reason for going to Colmar on the day itself was that it was sunny and rain was forecast the next day. Our hotel was in the town centre close to the beautiful cathedral and the river flowing by. My wife being the expert in identifying the points of interest duly found out that apart from the cathedral which was at our doorstep, the Petit France was the main place to visit. After walking a bit in the area around our hotel, we made the walk to the Petit France. The buildings showed up one by one on the way and looked beautiful in all its colours. We walked alongside the river and across a bridge from where a barrage could be viewed. It was like dam across the river, which releases water from time to time. Across the structure was our destination as we could spot a huge crowd over there which meant that was the point of interest. We walked through the cobbled lanes typical of European cities with colourful buildings, mostly bars and restaurants lined up along with way. As we arrived at the place, it was buzzing with people with the sun beating down. This was just what we needed in early spring post a hostile winter. After a long while we could sit under the blue skies and enjoy a sumptuous French lunch with lots of cheese, after which we decided to head for Colmar. The main train station was close by so we walked it.

Colmar

Colmar was just an hour ride from Strasbourg. We reached at around 5 PM with a couple of hours of daylight still ahead of us. This was truly a fairy tale place. An important point to note is that Colmar is virtually shut down on Sunday. We had known that well but still we wanted to take advantage of the good weather and visit the place despite the knowledge that public transport will be minimal and shops will be shut. We walked it to the ‘fairy tale’ zone knows as Petit Venice (or Little Venice), pictures of which dragged us to the place. It was around the canal flowing by, lined with beautifully painted houses, most resembling those fancy, creamy birthday cakes for kids. We walked along the canal through cobbled lanes and reached the place where one would take umpteen number of pictures. The place looked extremely fairy tale types even though it is more beautiful in late summer when the place is decorated with flowers. We walked further towards the town centre. The shops were shut but it did not stop us from enjoying the beauty of the place. Each of the shop buildings resembled a post-card. We wanted to soak in the atmosphere so took our seats in one of the open air cafes to have some much needed coffee. Dusk was setting in now so we left for Strasbourg. It was time to enjoy the Strasbourg evening now. We walked around the town centre and explored the place. The cathedral looked majestic even in the evening under lights. We settled in for dinner at a French restaurant opposite our hotel named Winstub. I would have to admit that food was truly brilliant and not for a moment did I miss the Indian food that I crave for.

Eguisheim

The next day was our turn to check-out of the hotel in Strasbourg. We would proceed to Basel in the evening en-route to Zurich. This meant a bit of a hassle as we would be visiting Colmar and Eguisheim on the way. We would have to carry our luggage on the way since we would not be returning to Strasbourg. This caused some painful thoughts to go through but we did not have much of an option. Colmar station does not have a cloak room to keep your luggage (We understood that many stations in France had removed cloak room facilities for security reasons). There is a cycle shop next to the station where you can keep your luggage but that closes down at 6 PM so that was not an option. So, here we were both dragging a couple of suitcases and on our way to visiting a beautiful French village. We took the tram to the station and on arriving in Colmar, we chose the safe option of taking a cab to Eguisheim (We had the knowledge that it would be around EUR 15). The driver was a bit surprised as to why we wanted to go there. He probably wondered why anyone who do not even have their own vehicle would want to go to a village like Eguisheim and that too with multiple pieces of luggage. His tone changed to concern as he probably wondered how we would be returning back. He dropped us at Eguisheim and we duly took down his number and told him that we would call him in an hour to pick us up. The information desk was open till 5 PM and they updated that there would be a bus around that time which would be the last bus. We somehow knew that there was no way we would be boarding that bus.
One look at the village totally left us awestruck (and off went our plans of returning by the last bus). We forgot the uncertainty of the transport or the inconvenience of the luggage. This was like being in lego land or a model village. If Colmar transported us to fairy tale land, this was several notches higher. This was much like the colourful version of Cotswolds in the UK. The village showed us all the possible colours and possibly creamier birthday cakes in the form of houses. There was a crowd but not enough to spoil the serenity of the place. The cobbled roads and the narrow lanes beckoned us and off we went just walking notwithstanding the irritating noise made by the wheels of our suitcases on the cobbled roads. Cars would be plying on the main road. However, the lanes were exclusive for us, walkers. I wondered if anyone were actually staying in those houses or was it all for show for tourists like us. There were some groups popping in from various lanes, mainly a group of students who had also come visiting like us. We walked around wherever the lanes took us and after moving through the maze, capturing some unbelievable shots we came back to the same place where we started. The information desk was now closing down. The last bus had left and our driver was not answering the phone. What a cool situation to be in, we thought. We sat down at a café to sip in some much needed coffee and enjoy the wonderful village a little longer, though the main purpose was that we needed the café owner’s help to get us a taxi to go back to Colmar. He was extremely helpful and duly managed to reach one of the taxi companies. We enjoyed our coffee in the beautiful surroundings and just on time our cab arrived to take us back to Colmar.

We visited the same places in Colmar once again but this time it looked livelier with the shops open. This resulted in some souvenir shopping and some more photography. The reluctance to leave was obvious but dusk had set in and we also had a few drops of rain so we decided to walk back to the station where we boarded the train to Basel, Switzerland. Our plan was to reach Basel airport from where we would board our bus to Zurich.
Initially we were of the knowledge that we would travel up to Basel main station and then board the bus to the airport. However, while in the train I realized that there was a station specifically close to the airport so we got off there. It was a deserted station with a sole tram waiting outside. We learnt that there was a bus stand round the corner from where there would be shuttle buses to the airport. But this sudden plan change resulted in us not having any cash on us. I had thought of withdrawing the same at Basel station but we were not going there now. I thought I would need to pay in Swiss francs but this was still France and we needed to pay in Euros. Luckily, there was an Englishman who had boarded the bus, a resident of France and hence understood both ours and the driver’s language. He explained to the driver our cash crunch and that we would withdraw from the cash machine at the airport and pay him. As warm the people are, the driver had no problems and he readily agreed.
Basel airport is unique in its own way. There is a part of the airport which belongs to Switzerland and the other half which belongs to France. There is an international border which runs through the airport which we duly crossed and photographed. After some confusion as to which side of the airport our ‘Flixbus’ bus would depart, we were assured that it would be from the French side. We settled ourselves for some snacks as waited for our bus at 9 PM. Finally, we boarded the bus and in a couple of hours we were in Zurich. Some more adventure awaited us. We were supposed to stay at my friend’s place. We duly got off the tram stop mentioned by him. But with the absence of data connection on our phones, we struggled to identify the exact lane. We took the help of a lady at the tram stop who was active on her smart phone. In no time we were home. The next day after a visit to the Zurich Lake, we were on our flight to London Luton.