Our France trip: Colmar and Menton, and how we barely made it back home

Roaming the cobblestoned streets of the fairytale, country town of Colmar and visiting the seaside town, Menton, on the French Riviera.

Colmar

After an exhausting, 11 hour flight, our taxi driver pulled into a charming town that resembled a fairytale from a childhood movie. The paved roads suddenly felt bumpy as we were now driving on cobblestone and approaching our air bnb. We were dropped off in front of an old, large, half-timbered, German looking house and were told this is it. This was Colmar.

We didn’t sleep the first night, partially due to being jet lagged, but also, in total disbelief that we’ve just entered a fairytale. The next day, as exhausted as we were, we still found the energy to roam the cobblestoned streets of this country-town. We had to see what we were in store for.

Croissants

The croissant-eating massacre began about 10 hours after we arrived. The local bakers didn’t see this coming. I’ve waited years to eat real, authentic fluffy, French croissants. And I ate, with no restriction. My favorite cafe, L’Atelier De Yann, was located right around the block of our air bnb, where limited quantities of the freshest croissants were baked and served daily. (Photo below)

Dining

This town has an impressive selection of quality, Michelin star and Michelin recognized restaurants scattered all throughout. To name a few: Jean-Yves Schillinger, Maison Rouge, Aux Trois Poissons, L’Épicurien, and Le Quai 21.

We got a chance to dine one of the nights at Maison Rouge. Val got a dish with three different kinds of fish served with sauerkraut and I ordered pork belly. We both highly recommend it! (Photos below)

Alsace Wine Tour

Colmar is a city of north-eastern France. It is the third-largest in Alsace. It happens to fall on the Alsatian Wine Route and considers itself to be the “capital of Alsatian wine.” Think, Napa Valley! We had to take a tour when we read about this. After some research, we went with Alsace Safari wine tours. They had the best reviews and we were sold. Eric and his wife are the owners of the company and provide the tours themselves.

We toured acres and acres of rolling hills of vineyards. We watched workers prune the vines as they prepared for the next season. Eric mentioned that this winter the weather was the warmest it’s ever been, with practically no snowfall at all! They predicted that this will change the flavoring and quality of their wine this next harvest.

During the tour, out of curiosity, I asked Eric which town Beauty and the Beast was birthed from. He said it was a town in Southern France but there’s a scene that he believes was pulled from this city, Eguisheim. (Photo below)

We visited a number of small towns along the Alsace wine route, by the name of Eguisheim, Riquewihr, Hunawihr, Ammerschwihr, and Koenigsbourg. We had lunch at a local Alsatian restaurant, sampled macarons, wine tasted, visited a castle, and walked the uneven, cobblestoned streets of hundreds of century-old German/French styled mansions.

Architecture And Sightseeing

Colmar is known for it’s well-preserved old town, remarkable religious buildings, architectural heritage, and romantic river canals . It’s architecture reflects eight centuries of German and French architecture with building materials that include pink and yellow sandstone and timber framing.

Little Venice (la Petite Venise) is a must-see river canal which formerly served as a butcher’s and fishmonger’s quarter. It has officially flooded Colmar’s Instagram feed. (Photo below)

When chatting with locals, they recommended we come back for Christmas. That is the busiest time of year for them where they dress the town up with Christmas ornaments and decorations. During our visit, in the beginning of March, it seemed like some shops kept Christmas decor up year-round!

Strasbourg For A Day’s Visit

Just a train ride away, Strasbourg is located right next to Germany and was also a must-see recommendation by Eric. On our last day, we visited this gorgeous city. This town gave us all the French feels.

After the 7th day, we hit the train station and off to the airport we went. Next stop, Menton.

Menton

Menton is a seaside town on the French Riviera in Southeast France with an extraordinary setting. It’s between mountains and sea, with Monaco on one side and the Italian border on the other. Much, much different then Colmar.

Since it’s on the border of Northern Italy, there are many Italian speaking locals, Italian restaurants, and Italian influence throughout this town. It reminded me so much of Amalfi and Positano. They say their known for their lemons and that citrus is king in their city (like Amalfi).

Menton is also known for their sandy/stony beaches, exotic gardens, and a few churches and museums. This area of France gets some of the best weather all year long. Mainly sunny with little rain.

Monaco For A Day’s Visit

Being so close to Monaco, we took a 15 minute train ride to visit this small, luxurious country, located on the French Riviera. It’s extravagant yacht harbor, international sports-car races, and the famous Monte-Carlo Casino from the James Bond movie are a number of things it’s known for. Tourists have given it a kind of fame that far exceeds it’s size!

Wrapping up our trip

On day four, we had a full-day French Riviera tour scheduled until plans changed, quickly.

At 5 am, Thursday morning, Val turned on the lights in our hotel room and urged me to get up and start packing our bags. I thought to myself “He’s lost it! It’s only day four here, we have a tour scheduled today, and we only leave to go back home in a few days.” He had started receiving messages from family and friends that due to the rapid spreading of the COVID-19, traveling back to the US will be harder than ever after Friday (the next day). He ran down stairs to have the hotel host call us a taxi as I frantically threw our belongings into our suitcases. And off to the airport we went!

As you can imagine, we weren’t the only tourists experiencing the effects of this virus. We made our way up to the only airline that was open at 7 am and the flight searching began. We tried to stay calm as we were told that flights had been fully booked and seats were rapidly being taken. We thought to ourselves, if we can make it anywhere into America, we can then figure out a way to make it home. Within a few hours, we were boarding our plane that would take us back to the promised land(at least it felt like), but more like New York, for a really pretty penny!

Friday morning, we were drinking coffee in the comfort of our living room at home. I thought to myself, I’ve never packed my bags as quickly as I have yesterday morning in our Menton hotel. I was a little bummed out we didn’t make it to Paris towards the end of our planned trip but we’ll have to save it for another year.

Aside from the most craziest 24 hours of our life, even though we cut our two week trip short by four days, we loved getting to experience and see the French culture, talking to locals, and eating all the buttery croissants we wanted.

If you’d ask me, it was totally worth it.