Chapter Sixteen: My Sincerest Apologies To Colmar

Mai Tai Tom Stays On Track Through Belgium, Paris and Strasbourg

Chapter Sixteen: My Sincerest Apologies To Colmar

Day Sixteen: Third Time’s A Charm, What Was I Thinking?, The Flowers Of Colmar, Collegiate Church, Father Of The Statue Of Liberty, Relaxing Canal Side, Sweet Stalling, Art In The Monastery, Remarkable Retable, Right Down My Allée, Fromage et salami dans le jardin & Finally A Strasbourg Blue Hour

The day of reckoning had arrived. I visited Colmar in 1984 and 2003, and on both occasions I found it to be wildly overrated, and maligning its La Petite Venise area writing, “the real Venice should sue for defamation.” However, Kim and Mary were keen on seeing it, so on an early Thursday morning we boarded the train from Strasbourg.

With expectations low, we walked from the station toward town, and in the next four hours I quickly realized I had been drastically incorrect in my previous evaluations. I guess the third time really is the charm.

Immediately, and with much certainty, I discerned that this was a book store.

In front of the first of numerous colorful half-timbered façades we would see strolling through Colmar, we saw Fontaine Roesselmann. It was designed by Auguste Bartholdi (the man who created the Statue of Liberty, and who we would soon learn much more about)) in 1888, topped by the bronze statue of Jean Roesselmann, “a 13th-century public judge who died defending Colmar’s liberties against the Bishop of Strasbourg.”

Once we ventured just a little more, it was a lock that Colmar had captured our hearts.

       

As our beautiful walk through town continued, Kim and Mary went to grab a coffee, while the evil taskmaster and his lovely wife pressed on enjoying the ambiance I had somehow missed on two previous trips.

We saw these on the pavement, and although confused at first, we quickly realized that the “Lady Liberty” arrows were placed throughout town to guide you to historical locations.

Alongside the canal we passed by Marché couvert, Colmar’s covered market.

Brasserie des Tanneurs exterior stood out among many others in this area, which serves traditional Alsace cuisine.

       

Fontaine Schwendl was also designed by Bartholdi. It depicts Lazare de Schwendi, a war chief in the mid 1500s, who fought against the Turks in Hungary. When he returned he brought with him the grape variety Tokay, which inspired Bartholdi to sculpt Schwendi holding a vine stock in the hand. The statue from the late 1800s continues to improve with age.

Maison dite au Pèlerin on the Grand Rue was formerly called zum Pilger (The Pilgrim’s House) and dates back to the late 14th century.

It was hard to miss the stork’s nest etched on the side. We saw a lot of those in Alsatian towns back in 2003. From The Good Life France website: “Visit Alsace in spring or summer and you’ll spot giant nests on rooftops, roadside poles and church towers in almost every village, town and city. Alsace is home to storks which migrate each year from Africa to spend the warmer months in Europe. They seem to particularly like the region’s natural environment.”

Whether they can carry coconuts with them is an argument for another movie. Here is a photo we took in Alsace in 2003.

It’s just one stunning view after another (maybe we went to a different Colmar before).

                           

Ahead of us stood La collégiale Saint-Martin (Saint-Martin collegiate church).

Before reaching the church we walked by Maison Adolph (not that one). Built in the mid 1300s, it is considered one of the oldest houses in Colmar. The wine in the shop downstairs is not as old.

In a public garden near Place de la Cathédrale, a group of young people created Pablo to put a smile on your face.

Although located on Place de la Cathédrale, Collégiale Saint-Martin de Colmar was really only a cathedral between 1790 and 1801 during the French Revolution.

The Gothic church was built between 1235 and 1365.

   

We didn’t spend a long time in here.

   

Once again we had reached our church limit for a trip.

             

I believe these bicyclists said, “It’s 11am somewhere.”

Our friend Tim had recommended we visit Musée Bartholdi (30 Rue des Marchands) if we made it to Colmar. The museum is dedicated to Colmar’s famed sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, and whose collection is in the house where he was born. He not only contributed numerous statues throughout town, but also, as aforementioned, Liberty Enlightening the World (aka The Statue of Liberty).

                                           

We stepped into the courtyard and saw his 1889 sculpture Les Grands Soutiens du Monde ((The Great Supporters of the World). Two males (who represent work and patriotism) and one female (representing justice) are shown hoisting a globe.

Starting on the upper floor, we saw his Christopher Columbus mold. It was cast in silver for the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois and a bronze replica was erected in Providence, Rhode Island in 1893, which has since been taken down.

Lafayette and George Washington were seen in his next molds. In this one, Lafayette and Washington clasp hands. The original statue was dedicated in Paris in the  Place des États-Unis in 1895 and was commissioned by Joseph Pulitzer to show the friendship between the two countries. There is a replica in NYC, too, at Morningside Park.

There are also molds of his statue of Lafayette that can be found at Union Square Park in Manhattan and an equestrian cast of Washington.

                                                   

Lady Liberty herself.

                                                       

There are, of course, lots of Statue of Liberty pieces here and other historical memorabilia celebrating his sculpture.

                       

One of the statues I wanted to see when in Paris was The Lion de Belfort, also created by Bartholdi. Sadly, it slipped my mind, so this was as close as I got on this trip.

                   

We toured through a few rooms of his house. In his will he bequeathed his office furniture and a fireplace he created in 1858 in his study. The mantlepiece is “crowned with the Colmar Coat of Arms and an inscription that translated means ‘Blue Sky Above Us’.”

 

Lots of cool things in this room.

       

In the Music Room, Bartholdi’s mom Charlotte (who some say is the face Bartholdi used for the Statue of Liberty), taught him and his brother the importance of learning music in gaining a better education.

The Dining Room really stood out.

            

It’s not often you see cups, bowls and plates on a ceiling.

There’s also a smaller version of Les Grands Soutiens du Monde.

It was coming upon noon, and I realized I had deprived Tracy of any food, so we checked out a few more of his creations before leaving, including Agnes of Hergenheim and a bronze plaque of Bartholdi and his wife Jeanne.

                     

We had seen La Fontaine Roessalmann from a distance. This is the fellow who stands atop that fountain.

                                                          

Finally we saw a plaster cast of the Monument in Honour of Général Rapp, one of Bartholdi’s earliest major works that was dedicated in Paris in the 1850s.

Back on the street we passed by some more interesting buildings. This 1537 house belonged to a wealthy hatter (not sure if he was mad). On the outside, the paintings depict Germanic emperors of the 16th century, Evangelists, allegorical figures along with biblical characters and scenes. It’s called the Pfister House after a merchant who bought it in 1841.

Maison zum Kragen is a 15th-century house that is an Instagram favorite thanks to the sculpture of this merchant.

                                                               

You could probably take a photo of every building in town. By now, knowing we couldn’t see everything here, I realized I should have added a couple of days to the trip (don’t tell our pets)

La Counsil souverain d’Alsace is where the High Court of Justice and Parliament was established in 1698. Today, it houses the District Court.

Due to lack of food, we thought we were seeing things.

Back at the canal, some folks were looking at some swans.

                                     

Meanwhile we were looking for lunch. We found ourselves back at the Marché couvert (built in the mid 1860s), and we scurried over to see if they had a canal-side table available on La Terrasse du Marché (where Kim and Mary had some coffee earlier).

This guy told me there was only a couple of more tables, and I walked as fast as an old man could who hadn’t eaten in 16 hours.

Tracy somehow talked me into a vegetarian tarte flambeé.

   

As the old saying goes, “Man does not live by vegetables alone,” so afterward we strolled the stalls.

One of them sold some sort of addictive chocolate dessert, which we bought a few of as we walked.

The fruits and veggies looked like artwork.

  

This is where you can find your daily bread. Man, I have gone to too many churches.

              

One more famous structure in town is the Gothic and Renaissance Ancienne Douane (Old Custom house), also also called Koïfhus. It’s has been classified as a historic monument by the French Ministry of Culture since 1930. It is also the birthplace of Général Rapp, whose countenance we saw at Museé Bartholdi. I learned afterward that he was a French Army officer during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, and also saved Napoleon’s life on more than one occasion. Had we visited Colmar’s Église Saint-Matthieu, we could have seen his heart that’s in a shrine there. And the beat goes on.

Although plenty of people, Colmar was not as crowded as we expected.

  

 

We had time to catch one more museum before leaving, and there was only one choice, Musée Unterlinden, which is located in in a 13th-century Dominican religious sisters’ convent, which also happened to be a former public baths building in the early 20th century.

           

There are a number of Romanesque and Gothic sculptures, which is where we started. A mid 15th century font came from Collégiale Saint-Martin de Colmar ss did these Prophets from the mid 14th century.

                   

There was a large mosaic that originally covered an 800+ square foot floor of a ceremonial room in Bergheim.

These guys go all the way back to a second century funerary stele, which I learned from AI is “a standing stone slab, often carved with inscriptions or reliefs, used as a grave marker or monument to commemorate the deceased.”

We saw a couple of paintings from Strasbourg painter Wilhelm Stetter.

                                               

Next up is the showcase of the museum. Earlier in the trip we were wowed by the Ghent Altarpiece in Belgium, and the Unterlinden has a famed altarpiece of its own. The Issenheim Altarpiece was a collaborative effort of artists Niclaus of Haguenau (sculpted portion) and Matthias Grünewald (painted panels). They created it for the Antonite order’s monastic complex at Isenheim, which is a town about 15 miles south of Colmar.

The altarpiece, created in the early 1500s, was mainly displayed for people inflicted with Saint Anthony’s Fire (“an illness brought on by the ingestion of fungus-contaminated rye grain causing ergot poisoning … with its frequent symptoms of gangrene, convulsions, sores and even hallucinations”). The thought was that the “beauty of the art and the image of Christ’s suffering would help the patients.” From the Unterlinden’s website, “In 1852 it was moved to the chapel of the former Dominican convent known as the Unterlinden in Colmar, becoming the principal treasure of the museum being established at that time.”

 

One of Nicolas of Hagenau’s sculptures is of St. Anthony flanked by St. Jerome and St. Augustine.

  

On these two panels are Temptations of St. Anthony and St. Anthony visits St. Paul.

           

The left panel shows St. Sebastian (the Martyr), while the right panel depicts St. Anthony (the Hermit). The base (aka predella) shows the entombment of Christ.

Concert of the Angels and Nativity.Thanks to a restoration of the altar, the colors are really vibrant.

 

Annunciation and Resurrection.

Before leaving the chapel a fresco from the 16th century.

We stopped by the cloisters for a moment …

… before checking out some artwork, including the Chariot of Death.

        

After looking at a Monet and a few others, we realized we needed to get back to the train station.

                                      

We walked by Le couvent Sainte-Catherine (Saint Catherine Convent of Colmar).

Taking a slight detour we strolled through Parc du Champ-de-Mars on the way to the train. The 1900 Carousel is touted as “the largest wooden one established in France.”

Some cider sounded good, but we pressed on.

We couldn’t escape yet another Bartholdi statue at the Fontaine Bruat. The man with the bird on top of his head is Armand-Joseph Bruat, who was an admiral in the French Navy during the Crimean War. Destroyed by the Nazis in 1940, it was restored in 1958.

The fountain represented the allegories of the four continents, and the original heads are at the Bartholdi museum. Tracy was right. We didn’t see everything.

Albert Schweitzer once stated that the head of the African “was what inspired him to be a doctor in the African bush.”

This little girl harnessed her energy, and by her determined look, she could be a future Hambletonian driver.

Finally we walked through the Allée du Champ de Mars.

As we boarded the train to Strasbourg, I hoped Colmar would accept my heartfelt apology for my negative comments over the past 40 years. If you have the opportunity, make Colmar a destination some day.

                         

Kim and Mary had taken an earlier train, but we had decided beforehand that we had spent enough money on dinners, and decided to have a little picnic in our hotel courtyard. Fortunately, Strasbourg does not lack for cheese stores …

                 

… and there were more than a few choices.

            

Our new friends at Le Comptoir des Vignerons Alsaciens received another visit from us to provide the libations for the evening.

       

The four of us relaxed and talked about the trip and all the great sights we’d seen, when I glanced skyward. “Damn, we finally have a blue sky night!”

It was time for one last stroll around Petite France.

Beautiful!

        

We loved our time in Strasbourg.

I am so glad we added this to our itinerary.

It was another tranquil evening in a town …

… but our trip was finally coming to a close.

Tomorrow, we’d take a lst quick stroll around Strasbourg and board our final train, where we would meet a passenger who had us yearning for home.

Chapter Seventeen: Epilogue … Au Revoir and Auf Wiedersehen