My Flowy Pants / Black Top / Sandals
Welcome to the FAIRYTALE land of France… the Alsace Region! Think Beauty and the Beast…
For years and years now I have been dying to visit the Alsace Region of France. I think it must have been one of those dreamy Instagram or Facebook travel posts years ago that sold me along with the line “the inspiration behind the villages in the Beauty and the Beast”. This region is on the western side of France bordering Germany and Switzerland and is PURE MAGIC! The mix of cultural and architectural influence from Germany and Switzerland paired with the beauty of France makes for the most unique and STUNNING villages!
There are soooo many beautiful villages to visit in this Alsace region of France. We wanted to get a little peek for now and then hope to travel back one of these days to visit even more of this stunning region. From Colmar to Strasbourg, Riquewihr and Eguisheim… there is soooo much to see if you have the time! We visited Strasbourg, Colmar and Eguisheim this time so that’s what I’ll be sharing on this post. But definitely see more if you can!
Now for the difficult part… getting there. Not that this area is so so difficult to get to but let’s just say that it isn’t convenient. So we’ve put it off year after year even though it always starts out on our Summer adventure list but then eventually gets scratched. This year though was the year!
So for us getting there, we had visited Paris for a week with the fam… BLOGGED THAT HERE… without a rental car. We then picked up a rental car on the outskirts and Paris and adventured the Normandy area for a week with the fam… BLOGGED THAT HERE… and then drove the family to the Paris airport for them to fly home, switched out our SUV rental car for a smaller one and then hit the road for the Alsace region!
If you are not coming from Paris, the other option would be to fly into Basel, Switzerland then rent a car for the one and a half hour drive to Strasbourg… or forty five minute drive to Colmar.
Strasbourg
John’s Shirt / Joggers / Shoes
Our first stop… Strasbourg, France! Strasbourg was about a four hour and forty five minute drive for us from the Paris airport. I am always very honest on all of my travel posts about when and when NOT to rent a car in Europe. Paris is an absolute NO in my opinion… along with most of the bigger cities unless you plan to just park and use the car for “out of the city” adventures. Most other areas of France though are pretty much all a YES! John is always our driver and he finds France to be fairly easy driving. Of course it’s always more intimidating than driving in your home country but there’s lots of highways and country roads outside the cities that make it fairly easy and they are all a GORGEOUS drive!
For Strasbourg, I had read lots of blog posts just like this one from other bloggers who had been deciding between an overnight stay in Strasbourg OR Colmar. I took the advice of many and we chose Colmar for our three night stay.
Saying all of that to say that we simply stopped in Strasbourg on our way to Colmar and didn’t adventure around too too much. Although it’s impossible to say with 100% certainly since we only spent a half day in Strasbourg and three days in Colmar… I did much prefer Colmar. Strasbourg is definitely super beautiful though and totally worth a visit! For us, Strasbourg felt a tad more “city” and Colmar felt a little more “village” which is what I was wanting out of our stay.
As I always say in most of my travel posts, the “old towns” of Europe are typically where you want to stay (hotel or Airbnb) and adventure. I always put the center of town into our Waze or Google maps and then once we are close, I find the blue “P” on the maps for a parking lot that seems close to where we want to be. For Strasbourg, we found a lot fairly close into town and walked around for maybe two hours and then grabbed lunch.
The food in this region has a very strong German influence and actually has it’s own name… Alsatian cuisine. It’s very meat heavy like most German cuisine so I always default to a good ole’ Caprese salad! But John loved it!
Colmar
COLMAR!!! TRULY of the most… if not THE MOST… adorable little town we have ever seen!!! John even went on and on about how impressed he was… to the point that he even said over and over how it was the only other European city we’ve visited that he could see us adding an Airbnb here to our wishlist. Most likely won’t happen BUT just saying that to say that we absolutely LOVED IT!
I will add another quick “tip” here just like I did on my Antibes travel guide… LINKED HERE… that IF you are able to travel any month OTHER than July or August to Europe, I would HIGHLY suggest it. I know it’s difficult with work and school schedules but I also know there are lots of school districts including ours that are out late May into June. And since most if not all schools in Europe don’t let out until July, that little gap in time makes a MUCH better time to travel in my opinion! I say all of that to preface that these villages are very touristy. We went in early June so it wasn’t bad but I felt like we got a little peek at how crazy it may be later in the Summer.
To get to Colmar, it was about a forty five minute drive for us from Strasbourg. For our stay in Colmar, we stayed at Hôtel Le Colombier… LINKED HERE… and LOVED IT! Would HIGHLY suggest! It was the perfect location right on the edge of Old Town so arrival and parking was fairly easy and it was a BEAUTIFUL hotel with great service and a/c! Here’s a peek at our room…
I don’t have too many suggestions and specifics for Colmar other than just meander and adventure! It is sooooo much bigger, in a good way, than we both thought. It felt like the Old Town village section of the city just kept going on and on and on. There’s so much cute shopping and amazing restaurants that we just walked and shopped and ate and then ate again!
It really is so picture perfect around every corner!
Eguisheim
Equisheim is a tiny little medieval village named one of “the most beautiful villages in France”! They even have a sign stating it right when we drive in. And let me tell you… it is like stepping foot into a storybook! It’s a very short twelve minute drive from Colmar and is 100% WORTH IT! Parking is veryyyyyy limited so I actually just hopped out of the car to take a few pictures and videos. It was starting to rain so we didn’t try super hard to park and hang out. It is absolutely ADORABLE though and I wish it had been better weather for us to explore. It is also rather touristy and rain was the ONLY reason there’s no one in this picture above LOL!
Thank you for being here! My Lake Como travel guide is next on the list!
XOXO, Brittany Palazzo
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