Chasing liberty in Colmar

Besides it’s half timber houses and storks, Colmar is also known for the work of one of its most famous sons - Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.  He is known far and wide for his statue Liberty Enlightening the World.   What, you don’t know that statue?  I think you do. …

That’s right, he is the designer for the Statue of Liberty as well as many other statues and landmarks.    There is a trail of triangles on the sidewalk like the one above that lead you to various landmarks and sites of interest in Colmar.  Many of them are other statues by Bartholdi himself:

And even a mini Statue of Liberty in roundabout. 

But sometimes they lead to houses like the Pfister house which is around 500 years old, and an example of Renaissance architecture in Colmar. 

We followed the trail for awhile and took in some Colmar history, and did some window shopping.  Occasionally  the trail was confusing:

We also spent some rain time in the Unterlinden Museum, which combined an old cloister and a turn of the century bath building into a large art museum. 

The museum is known primarily for its presentation of the Isenheim Alterpiece.  The St Anthony monastery where it was originally housed was known for proving medical assistance, particularly those suffering from St, Anthonys fire, a horrible illness common in the Middle Ages.  The disease is now known to be caused by a fungus that grows on rye grass, and contaminated bread, causing madness, blood flow problems and gangrene.  Scenes from the alterpiece depict St Anthony and Jesus as suffering, and were said to comfort those with the disease, though the ministrations and anti inflammatory medicines of the monks were probably more beneficial.  I can’t say that seeing scenes like this would bring me “comfort”:

There were other works by the artist Grunewald on display too.  He has a flair for the grotesque:

Even his dogs were scary:

But it wasn’t all creepy religious stuff  - the museum had Bronze Age findings, Roman fresco floors,  and even modern works.  A little bit of everything.  

But you don’t need to go to a museum to see interesting artistic expression - most every shop and building makes some sort of effort to decorate.  

We did also try Flammekueche, also known as tarte flambée - a specialty of Alsace.  It’s a thinly rolled dough with fromage bland or crème fraiche, thinly sliced onions and lardons.  Ours had a few mushrooms as well.   It’s very thin, and very tasty - though I picked off the lardons - more for Rich.  

Tomorrow we leave Colmar, though we stay in the region. I haven’t mentioned, but the sky stays lighter in this part of the world later than we are used to in upstate NY.  We are usually walking home from dinner around 10 and there is still some light in the sky.  Anyway, Goodnight Colmar.