In the crack of dawn, we made our ~4 hours drive from Cochem, Germany to the Alsace region of France. Alsace is known for its wine route but to me, its fairytale villages! We visited Colmar 5 years ago (yes already 5 years) and made a quick trip to the nearby village – Eguisheim, we loved them! Ever since then, I have been waiting to go back to explore the surrounding villages.

The weather has been cold, cloudy, and sometimes rainy and this was the only day forecasted to be sunny and turning cloudy in the afternoon. I changed my itinerary to accommodate the sunny day to visit my favorite villages of all – Colmar and Eguisheim. We arrived around 9 AM, there was a big parking lot right outside the village entrance very affordable – only €4 for the whole day!

When we got there, a bus tour also arrived so we better walk fast to get the photos first!

The main street to enter the village already filled with flowery houses!

I was super excited to be back to this beautiful village!

The main road leading to the main square, look at those colorful and flowery houses!

Eguisheim is named one of the most beautiful villages in France and it does live up to its title!

One very unique point about Eguisheim is that the village is built in a circular layout so you always walk back to the same point if you continue walking down the road 🙂 The first three circular roads are the most beautiful with colorful houses like these:

The residents truly decorated and maintained their houses and plants!

We arrived early to avoid the crowds but not the best time for photos, as you can see, half was in the harsh sun and half was in shadow.

The #1 postcard-perfect spot, this was the busiest, and to get photos without people, we did have to wait even though it was early in the morning. I noticed Eguisheim is a lot more “touristy” than 5 years ago but not as bad as Colmar. We were there in early October so it’s considered to be the low season.

Isn’t this cute?

Continued with our loop around the circular road:

This house is decorated with hearts and chicken figures…

This one is decorated with pans and pots!

None of the houses are the same in this storybook-like village!

At this point, the fountain in the main square was lit up by the sun, ah the warmth of the sun!

And of course, it’s getting more busy as shops opening up and residents and tourists are out.

This fountain and square was the inspiration for Disney’s Beauty & the Beast…the village where Belle lived, doesn’t it look like it?

The village looks more colorful with the sun and blue sky, it makes a huge difference in the photos!

For lunch, we went to Au Vieux Porch, just outside the village center:

The restaurant just opened once we got there and got a table. The dining hall inside looked upscale and probably that was the reason that they have an English menu and an extensive wine menu which there is a tablet just for that wow!

An amuse-bouche of half hard-boiled egg with a yummy creamy sauce:

Jason ordered the escargot, not my cup of tea 😛

I ordered my favorite foie gras, it was so good!

Next to me was this picture of Eguisheim, do you recognize this spot? Yes, it was that postcard-perfect spot that everyone takes pictures of! It sure looked different back then!

For main, Jason ordered the lamb rack, he said was juicy.

For me, duck breast, of course, that’s my main choice whenever I am in France! And look another piece of foie gras yum! The duck breast was good but not amazing.

Our lunch was €99.90 and we tipped €5, it was an expensive lunch but reasonable for the dishes we ordered.

After lunch, we walked back into the village center and part of the sky was getting gloomy.

We stopped by the postcard-perfect spot and the lighting wasn’t great so we decided to head to Colmar while there were still some areas of blue sky.

Colmar is only 15 minutes away by car, I booked Hotel Quatorze for 3 nights for a total of $540.57. I choose this hotel because of its location, right in the old town, minutes walk from the main sights. Last time, we stayed near the train station since we didn’t have a car and it was a 15+ minutes walk to the center which was a hassle when we want to go to the old town multiple times for photos. Also, I picked this hotel for its “reserved” parking nearby at €18 per day. After we unloaded our luggage, we were told to park at Parking Place Rapp which is less than a 5 minutes walk and they gave us a parking card for unlimited in and out privileges. There was no reserved space but we didn’t have trouble finding a spot.

Our room, looked very chic:

I found that man sideway photo right on top of our bed to be creepy…

I have never seen a bathtub like that size…

There wasn’t a proper table…it was built on the wall and only 1 chair, very odd!

The shower looked neat:

The only negative about this hotel is that the internet in our room is so slow that it’s almost nonexistent! For doing my work, I need to walk out to the lobby which is just right next to our room (very odd, you would have thought for that distance the wifi signal shouldn’t be an issue) to connect to the internet, very inconvenient!

We headed right out to La Petite Venise – the most beautiful spot in Colmar. It’s still as fairytale-like and colorful as 5 years ago, one thing changed….those red heart-shaped locks filled the rail!!! I found them distracting to the photos!

We saw a guy with a Canon DSLR camera so we asked him to take a photo…ermmm better than cell phone picture at least.

Colmar is as busy, especially during the mid-day!

Marché Couvert Colmar (a large market) with some outdoor seatings:

There was a brief moment when people were mostly out of the scene at this angle:

It was really like this, still busy:

It was impossible to take a photo of La Petite Venise without people on it except very early in the morning.

Then, we walked to Point de vue sur La Petite Venise which we finally get to see! The bridge was in the scaffold 5 years ago and blocked this view.

Must be good views when having lunch here at one of those restaurants!

Then, we ventured into the side streets, see even the side streets are filled with colorful houses!

Walked back into the center…

One of the many beautiful storefronts in Colmar, they are truly into decorations!

I remembered this building, they changed the decor according to the season. I would love to see the teddy bears in Christmas!

One of many cute hanging store signs and there is a tourist train coming!

Unlike many colorful villages where only the main street and/or a few side streets are pretty, the whole Colmar city center is as colorful and cute!!!

This cute pink house, love love love!

A view of St Martin’s Church on the back.

Looking back from the church’s side:

Must be a floral shop!

Colmar is busy with people and cars!

This house’s wall is crocked!

This direction has blue sky and I was waiting for the clouds to clear up at the main photo spots…

The sun was out but still not clear with blue sky yet!

It got a lot quiet in the late afternoon, easier to take photos.

And a few seconds of no people along this way, how lucky!

On the other hand, still people on La Petite Venise, this was the as clear as it can get during the afternoon!

We sat there right in front of the Marché Couvert Colmar waiting for sunset…

We just enjoy our views…I will never get tired of this!

I had a reservation at l’Arpege at 7 PM for dinner. Colmar was very busy this weekend for some reason, it wasn’t a holiday or anything, but places are fully booked! I couldn’t get a table indoor when booking a week in advance 🙁 They have those tents setup outside with heaters but even that, it was cold after it got dark 🙁

For the amuse-bouche, it was a fish…don’t ask me, I am not a fan of fish!

I ordered a “roasted pig” and it was good, especially with that jelly-looking sauce. However, after trying so many roasted pig dishes in Europe, I still think the Cantonese’ roasted pig is the best!!! The right hand side is interesting, I have no idea what it is but its texture is like crunchy beans and the taste in combination of the peanuts and vegetables on top was really interestingly good.

Jason ordered a fish for starter, it was good he said.

For the main, Jason ordered another fish, he’s a seafood lover!

I ordered roasted duck, it was very good, I wish the portion was bigger.

It was so cold by this point that I didn’t have any mood for dessert. Dinner total was €97 plus €5 tips, it was a little big less than the lunch we had. Hum…I think I prefer lunch because they had foie-gras.

We finally made it back to Egusheim and Colmar after 5 years and they did not disappoint, they are as beautiful, dreamy, fairytale-like, ahhh I want to go back for Christmas someday, hopefully, won’t be another 5 years!