Colmar

It was my intention to ease the transition from Switzerland to France by visiting the Alsace reason, which has historically been both French and German depending on where in time you are.

That said, the moment our train crossed the border into France the multi-lingual station and journey updates ceased and everything was purely French. It's okay. The audio system on the train was hard enough to hear the words clearly anyway.

Colmar is not a big place and it didn't take long to drag the suitcase from the station to the start of the cobbled streets of the old town. And this old town was old. We first decided to visit here because it looked like a Disney cartoon. (There are a number of towns in the Alsace region that claim to be "the inspiration" for Beauty and the Beast and this is one of them.)

Most of the buildings in the historic centre, and "little Venice" (a nickname given by someone who obviously hadn't been in normal sized Venice a week earlier) date from the middle ages and renaissance. And they're originals, as unlike a lot of the rest of Europe they weren't bombed or shelled during the 20th century. It was a very pretty place, something that was easier to appreciate after depositing our luggage in the Airbnb.
When picking a place to stay here I'd decided to book an upstairs room above a restaurant in pretty much the heart of the old town area thinking it would be easy to take some photos early or late in the day, potentially out of the window.

Our accommodation was the two open shutters on the first floor of the back building. I did not work out how to close the shutters when the sun finally set.

This was maybe not the best idea. At the time of booking I didn't appreciate just how happening European cities are basically every day of the week in summer. Rome, Naples, Amalfi, Florence, Venice and Lucerne all had a party vibe late into the evening every night of the week. Even knowing this, I wouldn't have predicted that a town as small as Colmar (population 70k according to Google) would be absolutely pumping on a random Wednesday evening. The streets were packed, and roads were closed so that musicians could set up stages or DJ booths all around the picturesque streets. The restaurants were full. Additional bars set up on trestle tables were pulling beers for five euro a cup on the streets. I figured this must be life when it snows in winter and your summer days don't literally cook you. And also when the law doesn't ban you from drinking a beer on the street.

For the majority who are smarter than me and realise that today is the Winter Solstice (in Adelaide) and therefore the Summer Solstice (in France) you would know that this means it was Fête de la Musique today. An annual, French celebration of amateur music in public places.

Arsonic playing for a huge crowd in front of the 550 year old Koïfhus.

DJ and dancing in front of one of the churches.

Because we won't have a kitchen or even a fridge for the week in Paris, our first stop in Colmar was the supermarket (which wasn't centuries old) so we could take advantage of the full kitchen in the apartment. Here we learned some other harsh truths about France. They do not sell many high-protein yogurts and puddings here. Most of the display fridges were dedicated to cheeses. This is not a whimsy, sadly. Even the regular yogurt selection was quite limited. We were able to find some ravioli and tomato sauce and - after eating only one serving in Italy over the course of two weeks - the first meal I ate in France was pasta.

After dinner we walked around listening to bands and admiring architecture. A few thunderclouds passed overhead, along with a random sprinklings of rain and an occasional flash of lightning. The sun did seem to be setting quite late which was pretty typical for the trip so far, and we had travelled ~150 kilometres north-west that afternoon, but I hadn't twigged it was the solstice yet.

10 P.M.

Vanessa went to try and sleep after being absolutely smashed by pollen that morning. I continued to listen to the bands until the sun eventually did disappear, not before colourful lights were beamed upon the big church across the square from the apartment. I went to bed around 10:30pm, the music stopped around 11pm and the giant church lantern dimmed its lights at midnight. It was extremely warm, and extremely humid. They did not have air conditioning in the fifteenth century.

All of this on top of a walk through the forest to Lucerne that morning, and breakfast (including high protein milk drink) by the lake before lunch and non-Aldi Swiss beer at the Rathaus Brauerei, and the aforementioned train ride. It was definitely a very long day...