France

Day trip to Eguisheim, another colorful village!

We had almost another day in the colorful town of Colmar as our bus back to Zurich was at 5:25 pm. There is a direct bus route operated by FlixBus from Colmar to Zurich, actually, the route started all the way from Frankfurt making multiple stops en route to Zurich. FlixBus is a cheap way travel by bus at only €11 one way, much cheaper than rail as you know train ticket in Switzerland is expensive! I found the company thanks to Rome to Rio website at: https://www.rome2rio.com/. You can search and buy FlixBus ticket at: https://www.flixbus.com/. I’ll have a review of the bus ride later in this post so stay tuned.

Since we had almost another day, we took the full advantage of it, we decided to visit Eguisheim; another colorful village nearby Colmar. There are many beautiful villages in the Alsace region, for example: Kaysersberg, Riquewihr, Ribeauvillé but even though they are very close by, they are a pain to get to without a rental car 🙁 There is limited public transportation to those pretty villages; only 1 bus that operates 2 times a day to Eguisheim and the bus schedule gears toward school and not for typical tourist. My friend highly recommended Eguisheim so she convinced us to take a taxi there, around 10 minutes and cost €12. She also warned that it might be hard to get a taxi back and be prepared to walk 1.5 hours to get back which she did when she was there in January and she thought it was totally worth it! The taxi driver spoke limited English but enough to get his business card in case we need a ride back, smart right? haha! He dropped us off in front of the Tourist Office right in the beginning of the charming village. Even though it was cloudy, it did not cover the colorfulness and cuteness of the half-timbered houses:

It was super cold that day, the temperature dropped to the 40’s but my excitement of discovering this charming village gave me some heat. We were the only two tourists there, well even the locals were not out yet. The village was quaint and decorated with Easter decorations as like in Colmar, we had so much fun photographing!

The village square (Saint-Leon square) and we were the only two people there…….pretty cool! While we were in the square, we constantly heard this loud sound from like a big bird, we looked up and saw this giant white stork who flew back to its huge nest on top of the church. Look closely in the photo below, can you spot the two huge nests? It was the first time we saw huge nests like that right on the top of the roof of houses!!! If I am a stork, I would pick this colorful village as my home too!

The color combinations are storybook-like…..don’t you think?

And this shades of green!

Lavender as my favorite color, I love how this plant is part of the decor!

It started to rain and snow so we hide under an entrance of a staircase to wait for it to pass. We waited around 15 minutes and thankfully the rain and snow stopped and didn’t came back! We continued on to walk around the village and photograph many pretty houses and shops. Their store signs are absolutely cute!

We walked into the more residential area of Eguisheim and the cobblestone roads are curved…we stopped at almost every other house to take a photo! It was so pretty at cloudy and cold day so I can’t imagine how beautiful it is at sunny day!

 

This narrow house adjoining two streets take cuteness to another level!!!! And that pink house right next to it, oh heaven!

The bicycle too, not sure if it’s for decoration, but picture perfect!!!

We ended up back to the tourist office and we didn’t realize that the village is designed in a circular layout until we saw the map of the village at the tourist office. WOW, it is amazing how they designed it, it was the first time we ever in a circular village like this!

We sat in the tourist office to read brochures and a video about the history of the village, very interesting, and highly recommend if you have time to watch that video. It was fascinating to learn that the village used to be a dull and boring looking village and turned out to be today’s colorful village! The clouds finally cleared out a little and at some small interval, the sun peeked out! We ran back out and took more photos, most are re-takes but you can see the difference with the colors!

We were starving so we had to stop and “waste” some time for lunch 🙁 We searched TripAdvisor and found Caveau Heuhaus, the amount of decorations in the restaurant is unbelievable!

I ordered my favorite foie gras again, it was tasty!

Look at the beautiful plate! Is it for sale?

I couldn’t resist but to take a photo with the plate LOL!

I totally forgot what Jason ordered, sorry but it was yummy 🙁

I ordered the Alsace Hot Pot, I was really interested with the name “hot pot”. It is a traditional Alsatian dish, three types of meats: beef, pork, and lamb slow cooked with vegetables in a ceramic pot. I was expecting more sauce/soup but it was pretty dry too bad!

The dessert and it was refreshing:

The blue sky was waiting for us….please stay a little longer! Love Eguisheim!

We are back to this street again, recognize that beautiful flowering tree?

And this iconic house!

Every turn, every angle is pictureque!

See the colorful tiles on the rooftops? Now it’s obvious with sunlight!

The parisch church is dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul:

It was time to head back to Colmar so we walked back to the tourist office and ask the lady in the office to help us call that taxi driver. He said he’ll need 45 minutes so we asked if she has another taxi driver. She called this one and he said will be here in 15 minutes…we waited and waited….no one show up yet. As we were waiting, I ran out to have one last look of this postcard-perfect spot!

 

The driver arrived with his luxury van, uh oh, wondering how much it’ll cost yikes! I told him to drop us off at Petite Venice…..it cost us €18 almost 50% more than regular taxi….the bridge of course still under renovation but we lifted our camera up and tried to take the photo as best as we could, not bad:

We had an hour to go so we have our last look of Colmar…..re-take photos again!

Oh beautiful Colmar and Eguisheim, I will miss you!

I wish we had more time in that region and with a car to visit the other villages, I am sure they are charming as well. It was worth the taxi ride to Eguisheim; a smaller version of Colmar but it has its own uniqueness and charm.

We headed back to our hotel, checked out, and as we were about to walk out, Jason received a text message that the bus is delayed half an hour due to traffic. We got back to the hotel and hang out in the lobby to wait. Jason walked over to the train station to buy some sandwiches for our bus ride – 2 hours 40 minutes. Half an hour passed and we walked out toward the bus stop according to the map, we didn’t see any FlixBus sign hum…..and then I spotted the FlixBus logo at the bus station across the street. We dragged the luggage across the street and waited for the “Line 108” bus.

 

It was so cold….after half an hour..another text message that the bus delayed again. Jason hide behind this tree trunk to block some wind LOL!

The bus finally came and it was an hour delayed! The bus driver checked our boarding tickets and our passports and we got on the bus. The bus was half full, new looking coach bus, seats were comfy, and have free wifi (although not fast). When we were crossing the border to Basel, Switzerland, the bus pulled over at border control and the office came on the bus to check our passports, it was a quick process.

On the way to Zurich, I received an email from the hotel in Chefchaouen, Morocco – Riad Gharnata that they have canceled our reservation because they are overbooked! OMG, I was very mad, I booked the hotel back in December and our trip was at the end of April so a good 5 months! They could’ve contacted us earlier to notify us but no and waited 10 days before our stay when every hotel was sold out! Their broken English explanation was awful and they sent us a private Orbitz message (we booked through Orbitz) every day to ask us to cancel. Instead of them canceling on their end, they kept harassing us to cancel it…I guess so they won’t look bad! I replied few times to ask for an explanation, all they said was a computer error, out of their control, blah blah blah. Seriously if computer error, you didn’t notice it until today? I tried to search other sites but due to slow wifi, I had to wait until we get back to our hotel tonight 🙁

We arrived Zurich almost 10 pm, walked over to the main train station, bought tickets, and took the train to Zurich Airport. Once we reached the airport, we walked to the hotel shuttle bus stop to wait for our shuttle bus to the Holiday Inn Zurich Airport. The hotel’s shuttle arrived in 10 minutes and the driver was crazy with some passengers (not sure if they were his friends or not) but they made the van like a party bus – loud Spanish music! We got to the hotel in 10 minutes, check in was fast, and the room was simple and small like other Switzerland hotels, it was only for a night stay. However, we were surprised on how high quality their towels are, very plush better than 5 stars hotels! I spent the night looking for alternatives and in the worst case, re-route our itinerary and Chefchaouen was one of the main highlights of the trip to Morocco!!! I found like 5 places with AirBnB and contacted each host so hoping for luck because even the property is listed it might not be available, will need confirmation by the host….and none of those 5 places look pretty at all in pictures sigh 🙁 I tried to be positive by looking at the beautiful pics we took in Eguisheim and Colmar!

6 thoughts on “Day trip to Eguisheim, another colorful village!

  1. Did you plan colmar & eguisheim in April? If yes does it normally rain & snow in mid april? I am planning for 2 night stay in Colmar in April.

    1. Hello, we were there in mid-April but I don’t know if it was normal for snow; but the days before and after our stay, the forecast was sunny although still cold! Pack layers and enjoy the beautiful Colmar!

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