Haut-Rhin: Colmar, the Wine Route, and Alsatian Identity
Haut-Rhin is the southern half of Alsace, bordering Germany and Switzerland. Colmar, the prefecture, has a spectacularly preserved old town of half-timbered houses along canals (La Petite Venise) and the Unterlinden Museum, which houses Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece, one of the masterpieces of European art. Mulhouse, the department's largest city, was an independent republic until 1798 and has reinvented itself around industrial museums.
The Alsatian wine route runs through the foothills of the Vosges, passing through villages like Riquewihr, Eguisheim, and Kaysersberg that look almost unchanged since the sixteenth century. Haut-Rhin, like the rest of Alsace, retains the droit local system from its German period. The population is about 768,000. Christmas markets in Colmar and the surrounding villages draw hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
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Haut-Rhin is the southern half of Alsace, bordering Germany and Switzerland. Colmar, the prefecture, has a spectacularly preserved old town of half-timbered houses along canals (La Petite Venise) and the Unterlinden Museum, which houses Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece, one of the masterpieces of European art. Mulhouse, the department's largest city, was an independent republic until 1798 and has reinvented itself around industrial museums.
The Alsatian wine route runs through the foothills of the Vosges, passing through villages like Riquewihr, Eguisheim, and Kaysersberg that look almost unchanged since the sixteenth century. Haut-Rhin, like the rest of Alsace, retains the droit local system from its German period. The population is about 768,000. Christmas markets in Colmar and the surrounding villages draw hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
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