La Petit Venise- Colmar, France

Time for an update! This past weekend we had Friday off for German Unity Day, celebrating the reunification of east and west Germany. To celebrate the extra day, Bruce and I headed to Colmar, France, which is about a 2 hour drive from Mannheim (gotta love Europe!). If you Google "Colmar" you will find some postcard-like pictures, which show exactly what the town looked like. Honestly, I thought I walked into some sort of photo album of adorable European cities. The houses were colorful and traditional, and the small canal that goes through the town is covered in flowers as small boats take people up and down its path. Heading down there right after work, we arrive at our hotel around 8 ready to head out and grab some dinner. The maître d' told us about a restaurant about 10 minutes drive away called 'The Theater'. Walking inside we are welcomed by such beautiful, warm and cozy decor with lots of antique pieces, supposedly used in an old theater.

 veggies

I ordered a seasonal vegetable dish, and Bruce ordered some white fish in a white wine sauce, which was deliciously heavy and warm. We started off with some foie gras, because well...when in France... I can't say I'm a super fan, but nothing can taste bad on an authentic French baguette right? (the first of many this weekend)

The next day we woke early, grabbed a bite from the hotel continental breakfast (see here www.youtube.com/watch?v=st21dIMaGMs) and then drove downtown to park and begin wandering the small side streets and shops for the day. We began by getting our bearings from the information area, but ultimately we zig-zagged through streets and squares, sometimes back tracking and going in circles, but seeing something new each time.

 

We spotted some restaurants sitting next to the small canal going through the town and decided to squeeze onto a table in the sun. Grabbing some wine and a snack, we enjoyed people watching and had to keep double checking that it was real. This town is just so picturesque it's unbelievable.

 

 shadow puppet pizza

From there we found ourselves in a small indoor market selling anything from fresh produce to cheeses to even some Arabic dishes. Two discoveries were uncovered here. The first was headcheese. Yep. Head. Cheese. Firstly, there is no cheese involved in headcheese. Unfortunately, there is some head. Chunks of meat from different areas of the head (cheek, chin, brain, etc.) are put into a kind of jelly mold (I know I'm selling this well aren't I?) and served in slices to put on a nice baguette with some mustard. The butcher asked if we would like the tongue headcheese, blood headcheese, or just the mix of all the different head parts. Of course we opted for the latter. After getting a slice of our headcheese we met a man selling his wine who recommended us to go to his shop in town to visit his coworker who would let us try some wines. We decide to take him up on that offer and go into the shop to make a new friend and learn a lot about the wine area of Colmar.

That row of bottles you see in the background is the tasting list from that afternoon. Not only was the man friendly, but he also loved America and told us all about his adventures there with his family to the national parks and other west coast cities. I told him he should try the east coast sometime too!

Don't worry, I didn't forget about our headcheese. After tasting a significant number of delicious wines and swapping business cards (well...his card) we picked up some bread and mustard to follow the butchers advice with regards to this...treat...

Again, similarly to the foie gras, I can't say I'm a convert. A bit too meaty and jelly-like for me. But hey, you have to try everything once right? After our snack we wandered the town some more and enjoyed the perfect weather we were amazingly lucky to have.

 

American Biscuit aka Oreo....

That afternoon, we decided to explore Colmar via water and hop on a boat tour. The canal itself is apparently about 40 km long, although the tour would only cover about .5 km of that. We traveled up the canal a bit learning about the houses back there (going for multiple millions of Euro) as well as the wildlife (some sort of aquatic rodent making its home there). We learned about the houses. Those with hearts on the shutters that means the woman of that house is looking for love, and the shutters with diamonds are hoping for lots of children. Bruce compared it to a facebook status. A bit more difficult to change the shutters than a status, but similar concept I suppose. "It's complicated" might be hard to translate in to shutter. Anyway- I'm getting sidetracked. We enjoyed the quick, but pretty boat tour and continued on our walk around the town.

Harris

 

Sneaky sneaky

At one point we snuck (sneaked? snuck? snook?) into the Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi museum, the man who created the Statue of Liberty. Turns out, Colmar is the birthplace of Bartholdi, and his presence is made known all over the town in small miniature tourist knick-knacks of the statue, fountains, and even hotel room artwork. Anywho- no one was at the desk, and we didn't really feel like shelling out the 5 Euro to see the museum, so we decided to take a quick self-guided, and free, tour ourselves. Naughty Americans, can't take us anywhere.

If it looks like this was taken out of the sun roof of a car...that's because it was....

From there we went to a restaurant, located right on the canal, recommended to us by the boat tour guides. This time, I went for the onion soup (again, when in France), while Bruce decided on some trout. Turns out the trout was trying to get back at the world for killing it for dinner by exuding an exorbitant number of bones in each bite. Eating it was like checking for landmines in the DMZ (Ahh see what connections I made there?). It tasted good, but overall an average French meal. Beautifully plated though!

We headed back to the hotel to get some good sleep before a day of resting and relaxing at the Caracalla Spa in Baden-Baden. About an hour and a half drive, we headed off to the spa in hopes of getting some sun and some mineral water therapy in the different baths. I didn't bring my camera into the spa with me (for obvious reasons) but if you Google the spa you can get a good idea of how gorgeous this place was. The indoor pool connects with the outdoor pool and hot tubs are sprinkled around everywhere. Waterfalls and other faucets provide some great back and shoulder massages as well. While it wasn't exactly a super hot day, it was clear and bright, and we competed to see who would get more sun after the day (Arabic skin takes the lead!).

After soaking up the water and sun we packed up and hit the road back home to enjoy a night of sushi and drinks with friends before passing out immediately. While we didn't do anything too crazy, it was still a lot of walking and driving, which drains you. I love being able to talk to friends from home and say that I visited France for the weekend though, so that makes it all worth it in the end!

Time for another week with the kiddos! Also, I will be moving into my own apartment this week, so pictures of that will be up as well!

German of the Post:
"passieren die Sülze bitte"
 Pass the headcheese, please!