In the beginning of December we took a quick overnight trip to a French town of Colmar in the region of Alsace. Alsace is a gorgeous place to visit in the summer and fall, as it is known for its wineries and wines. Our friends brought us some yummy wine from there when they went to visit.
In the winter, visitors to Alsace typically stop in the town of Colmar and see the famous Marche du Noel, or Christmas Market. And you know what you can get in a wine region in the winter... yes, hot spiced wine! Score.
We headed to Colmar on a Saturday. It was a pretty long drive (about 4 hours) so we were hoping that the trip would be worth it. Especially since we decided to stay there overnight (we didn't feel like spending 8 hours in the car in one day).
We got there around 3pm and right after checking in and dropping off our bags, we headed to explore the Old Town. It was literally 5 minutes from where we were staying.
It was a really cold winter day so we had to bundle Katherine real good. She was in tights, pants, socks, sweater, winter jacket, hat and mittens, and on top of that she was zipped inside her stroller bunting... She must have been real nice and toasty in there because at one point she just fell asleep even as we were going over cobblestones and all... haha...
We stopped by one of the stands and got some amazingly delicious local sausage and crusty European bread. Yumm! Even Katherine tried some and liked it.
It was getting dark (and colder) quickly so we headed to the hotel to warm up and stretch out.
We had dinner at the restaurant within our hotel and as typical it was delicious. We sampled some local Christmas beer and hung out there as Katherine was climbing all over us and the table.
The next morning we got ready, packed our stuff and went for another stroll trough the town and around noon we started heading back to Geneva. On the way, as we were passing Bern (German part of Switzerland) we got caught in a horrible blizzard that lasted pretty much the entire time until we got over to the French speaking parts. Seems like every time we went to the German parts we had to get stuck in a blizzard. Same thing happened back in April when we went to Lucerne to spend Easter 2012 there...
And also on the way, we got flashed with the traffic camera twice for going barely a few miles over the speed limit, so we knew we had a couple tickets coming... Sure enough they arrived after we had already left Switzerland to move back to the US. Too funny. They have a very reliable and merciless enforcement system.
Overall it was a really cool trip and definitely put us in a Christmas spirit. We loved how the town was all decorated, we loved seeing everyone mingling around, laughing and having a great time. The spiced wine was delicious and local crafts were charming. I would highly recommend this place to anyone who is in the area during holiday season.
1 comment:
Awsome trip it seems like a lifetime ago. Dinner in the hotel was great and it was such a cool town!
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