France · Self-guided walk
Colmar in one walk 8 sights, 25 minutes
A self-guided walking tour of the Colmar Old Town: 8 sights on one 1.5 km loop, about 25 minutes on foot, back where you started.
No two days to spare? Here is the short version: the big sights in one loop. I would take longer. I always take longer.
At a glance
The walk in numbers.
- Distance
- 1.5 km, a loop
- Time
- about 25 minutes of walking at 4 km/h, plus however long you stop
- Sights
- 8
- Start and finish
- Musée Unterlinden
- Steps
- no streets with steps on the route
- Cost
- free: no guide, no booking, no tip
The route
Map of the Colmar walk: 8 stops, one loop.
The gold line is the walk. The numbers are the stops, in the order you reach them. The pale lines are every other street in the Old Town.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
The stops
8 sights in Colmar, in walking order.
Each stop says how far the next one is and which streets take you there.
1. Musée Unterlinden
the start · inside open Mon 10:00–18:00, Wed 10:00–18:00, Thu 10:00–20:00, Fri–Sun 10:00–18:00, Tue closed
The north end of your circuit, on a square of its own. It was a convent before it was anything else, and the cloister is still in there: fifty-four twin arches round a garden, and the best spot on this whole circuit to sit down. Then it went and ate the public baths next door. I like a building with an appetite.
Next: Hôtel de Ville de Colmar, 290 m, about 4 min, along Rue d'Unterlinden, Quai de la Sinn, Rue des Clefs.
2. Hôtel de Ville de Colmar
about 4 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Mon–Fri 08:30–12:00, 14:00–17:30, Sat–Sun closed
Number 48 on the Rue des Clefs, with the Place de la Mairie out front. Over the door, in the triangle at the top, the arms of the town are carved into the stone. Go and look at them: that is the thing I could not fit onto a button.
Next: Collégiale Saint-Martin, 240 m, about 4 min, along Rue Saint-Nicolas, Place de la Cathédrale.
3. Collégiale Saint-Martin
about 8 minutes of walking from the start
The square out front is named for a cathedral, and there is no cathedral. The title was true for eleven years around the Revolution, when Colmar briefly had a bishop of its own, and the name simply stayed. It fills a whole side of that square, so you will be going round it whether you meant to or not. My favourite sort of obstacle.
Next: Musée Bartholdi, 80 m, about 1 min, along Place de la Cathédrale.
4. Musée Bartholdi
about 9 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Tue–Sun 10:00–12:00, 14:00–18:00, Mon closed
A house on the Rue des Marchands, and the part I would not skip is the courtyard. Standing in the middle of it is a bronze group called the Great Supports of the World, cast in 1902 and set down here in 1909, when its maker was already dead.
Next: Maison Pfister, 60 m, about 1 min, along Rue des Marchands.
5. Maison Pfister
about 10 minutes of walking from the start
It is at the point where the Rue des Marchands bends, and you will find it by the people who have all stopped in the middle of the road. Look up. Then keep going up, because the good half is the upper one and almost everybody quits at eye level.
Next: Ancienne douane (Koïfhus), 100 m, about 2 min, along Rue des Marchands.
Lunch break
Mokka, 35 Grand'Rue, about 90 m off the route, open Mon–Sat 09:00–18:00, Sun 11:00–18:00.
A long narrow room in what used to be a dry cleaner's, opened in the summer of 2021 by Ambre Monchanin and Pierre Schroeder, who both trained as cooks in Lyon. More on what to eat in Colmar.
6. Ancienne douane (Koïfhus)
about 11 minutes of walking from the start
It closes the south end of your circuit, on the square that carries its name. Walk round it rather than past it: a wooden loggia sits on stone columns, and along the north building somebody carved human masks onto the windows. I could look at those all afternoon, and I have.
Next: Église des Dominicains, 350 m, about 5 min, along Rue des Marchands.
7. Église des Dominicains
about 17 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Mon 10:00–13:00, 15:00–18:00, Thu 10:00–13:00, 15:00–18:00, Fri–Sat 10:00–18:00, Sun 10:00–13:00, 15:00–18:00, Tue–Wed closed
On a square of its own, and from outside it is a plain box with a steep roof and next to nothing on the face of it. That is deliberate. Go in and you will find out what the plainness was saving up for. Next door, the old convent is a library holding more than a thousand manuscripts, the oldest of them written before anybody had written down the name Colmar.
Next: Maison des Têtes, 200 m, about 3 min, along Rue des Boulangers, Rue des Têtes.
8. Maison des Têtes
about 20 minutes of walking from the start
On the Rue des Têtes, a short hop from the Dominicans' church. There is a restaurant in there now, which is your kind of meal. Mine is the lane outside. Before you go anywhere near the menu, cross the lane and give the front a long stare. I am not telling you why.
Back to the start: Musée Unterlinden, 210 m, about 3 min, along Rue de l'Eau, Place d'Unterlinden, Rue d'Unterlinden.
Every stop counts from the street; the hours are for going inside. Opening hours from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Check before you go.
After the walk
The rest of Colmar.
This loop is 8 sights. The Old Town is 108 streets, and I have opinions about all of them. Every street of the Colmar Old Town, with what to eat and where.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone: every street is a line of dots you collect by walking it, and the phone stays in your pocket. Your first city is free.