Colmar

Colmar is a town in the Haut-Rhin of about 67,000 inhabitants, set in the Alsace plain, at the foot of the Vosges, halfway between Strasbourg and Basel. Documented from the ninth century, it was a free city of the Holy Roman Empire from 1278 to 1673 and a member of the Decapolis from 1354, before passing under French sovereignty, then being annexed by Germany from 1871 to 1918.

Its historic centre, largely pedestrianised, brings together the Pfister house, the Koïfhus (old customs house), the Maison des Têtes, in Renaissance style, the Gothic collegiate church of Saint-Martin, and the Little Venice district, lined with canals. The Unterlinden museum keeps the famous Isenheim Altarpiece. Colmar is the birthplace of Auguste Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, a replica of which can be seen in the town. It lies in the heart of the Alsace vineyards.

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