Coverage · France
Colmar
Colmar is Alsace's best-preserved medieval city, a tangle of half-timbered houses, canal-side lanes, and sandstone churches that survived both World Wars largely intact. It is also the birthplace of Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor behind the Statue of Liberty, whose influence turns up on fountains and monuments across town. The Unterlinden Museum alone, housing the 16th-century Isenheim Altarpiece in a former Dominican convent, draws 200,000 visitors a year.
35+ researched places in the app
Places researched in this city
A selection of the 35 places we've researched in this city. The full set is in the Parroo app.
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Unterlinden Museum
A former Dominican convent founded in 1232 became one of France's most-visited regional museums after Herzog and de Meuron doubled its exhibition space to 8,000 square metres in 2015. Its centrepiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald, was painted for a monastery hospital and depicts suffering with an intensity that still stops visitors cold.
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Collegiate Church of Saint Martin
Built between 1234 and 1365 on the foundations of a Carolingian church destroyed by fire in 1106, Saint Martin's 71-metre tower anchors Colmar's skyline and its multicoloured tiled roof makes it instantly recognisable from above. Excavations in 1972 uncovered the remains of that earlier sanctuary beneath the nave.
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Pfister House
Colmar's first Renaissance building, raised in 1537 for a hatter who made his fortune in silver trading, it is covered in murals added in 1577 depicting Holy Roman emperors, evangelists, and allegorical figures such as Faith and Justice. The two-storey oriel window and octagonal turret set the template for the city's architectural ambition.
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Little Venice
The Krutenau district takes its name from the German word for herb, a reminder that this canal-side neighbourhood was market-garden territory in the Middle Ages, with flat-bottomed boats carrying produce along the Lauch River directly to the covered market. Today the same waterway frames some of the most photographed reflections in Alsace.
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Koïfhus (Old Customs House)
Completed in 1480 and still the oldest public building in Colmar, the Koïfhus served as a warehouse on its ground floor and a tax office above, where merchants of the Décapole alliance paid duties on imported goods. It was nearly demolished in the 19th century before a last-minute rescue and restoration.
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House of Heads
The 106 sculpted heads crowding the façade of this 1609 German Renaissance building gave it its name, though no one is entirely certain whether they symbolise protection or satirise the city's residents. The tin cooper perched on the roofline is the work of Auguste Bartholdi, Colmar's most famous son.
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Roesselmann Fountain
Bartholdi modelled the face of 13th-century provost Jean Roesselmann on Hercule de Peyerimhoff, a defiant former mayor of Colmar, giving this 1888 bronze a pointed political edge that locals understood immediately. The fountain was dismantled in 1943 and quietly restored in 1945, making it a small monument to the city's own resilience.
Good to know
- How many places does Parroo cover in Colmar?
- 35 researched places, from the Unterlinden Museum and the Collegiate Church of Saint Martin to lesser-known spots like the Roesselmann Fountain. Each one has a short summary, a full article, and a ~3-minute audio story.
- Is there an audio guide?
- Yes. Every place has a ~3-minute audio story, written from the perspective of a guide standing next to you and produced with premium narration, not the article read aloud.
- Which languages is Colmar available in?
- German, English, and French. Pick whichever you'd rather read or listen in.
- Do I need to book anything or be online?
- No booking, no signup. It's a self-guided walk you start whenever you like. You do need a connection for now to stream the audio and load articles; offline support is something we're still building.
Open this city in Parroo
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Updated: 2026-05-29