Every great tour needs a moment where the pace changes completely. For Fairways & Frontlines, that moment is Colmar.
Colmar sits in the Alsace region of eastern France, near the German border. Its old town is UNESCO-listed, with half-timbered houses in pastel colours lining narrow canals — the area known as “Petite Venise.” The Maison des Têtes (House of Heads) has 106 sculpted faces on its facade. The Tanners’ Quarter is a photographer’s dream.
And the food. Alsace has a culinary tradition that blends French technique with Germanic heartiness. Tarte flambée (a thin-crust pizza-like dish with crème fraîche, onions, and lardons), choucroute garnie (sauerkraut with an assortment of meats), and Kugelhopf (a sweet Alsatian cake). The wine is exceptional too — Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Pinot Gris from vineyards just outside town.
We arrive in Colmar after a scenic 2.5-hour drive from Verdun through the Vosges foothills. It’s Day 9 — the tour has spent a week on battlefields, memorials, and northern French golf courses. The emotional weight has been significant. Colmar is the exhale.
There’s no golf here. No memorials. Just a beautiful town, a great hotel in the Grand Hôtel Bristol, a walking tour of the old town, and dinner at a traditional winstub — an Alsatian bistro where the locals eat.
The practical reason for the stop is equally important: it breaks the Verdun-to-Evian journey into two manageable drives instead of one long slog. But the experiential reason is what matters. After the intensity of Verdun, Fromelles, and Pozières, you need a town that looks like a postcard and serves you tarte flambée with a glass of Riesling.
The next morning, the coach heads south through Basel and along the shore of Lake Geneva to Evian-les-Bains. But for one evening, Colmar is the star.