Well, here we are… it’s December 28th and I had hoped to get a couple more blog posts written before Christmas, but it looks like I bit off more than I could chew!
I will take a little pause from sharing about our adventures while family visited us in November. Instead, I want to share some pictures and anecdotes from our first Christmas in Europe! Call me crazy, but as soon as we landed in Switzerland in August, I started planning our Christmas trip. I knew we would want to stay somewhat local, keeping it to 3 hours of travel as a maximum. A few options came to mind: staying in the mountains in Grindelwald, going to Montreux and visiting the Château Chillon, or going to the Valais (a French mountainous area in Southern Switzerland). During my research, I remembered a podcast I had listened to religiously while in Canada. It’s a pretty awesome podcast called Swiss & Chips. It is animated by a Swiss man and his British (who has recently become Swiss) girlfriend. They had done an episode last year about their travels to Colmar, France. It sounded absolutely magical at Christmas time! Accommodations were very affordable, so we decided to book our trip.
We decided to take public transit to get there and back. We could have driven, but we felt it might be easier with kids to take trains. It was a great trip! We took a total of 3 trains, but easily made each connection. The only thing that was a bit cumbersome was that we couldn’t easily take a stroller with us, so we left it behind. Our girls showed us that they are great little travellers! They enjoyed being on the train, eating unlimited snacks, and getting more screen time than usual.
We stayed in Turckheim, which is a small town just outside of Colmar. How lucky that we stayed there! Our Airbnb was located within the old city walls. It was like taking a step back in time: cobblestone streets, medieval buildings and a large chiming bell tower that tolled every hour. One of the things that attracted us to Colmar was the Christmas markets. Turckheim also had a cute Christmas market we enjoyed on our first day there. Turckheim and Colmar are located in an area called Alsaces. The area is known for its white wines. The pinot gris that we tried was amazing! Vineyards were seen everywhere between towns. I can imagine it being quite picturesque in the summertime!
I’ll share with you some pictures of the town of Turckheim:
In Colmar, we only spent part of one day there, on Christmas Eve. We had fun on the carousel bar (a slowly spinning carousel where adults and kids could sit with hot chocolate or warm glüwein), a mini roller coaster, and playing at a park nearby. We also happened upon an old merry-go-round from the ealry 1900s. It had two stories!
During our stay in Colmar, I realized just how blessed we are to live where we live. France was a beautiful country to visit, but we were struck by how much dirtier and unkept public places were. Parks were rundown and the train stations were filthy. We also noticed very quickly that public transit in Switzerland is obviously top of its class. Trains are almost always on time, always clean, and on a regular schedule. In contrast, in Turckheim we couldn't miss a train since it was the only one for hours (literally 5 hours!!) that would be going to Colmar. Even remote areas here in Switzerland seem to be well-connected to transit. It's quite amazing! We also lucked out during our train going from Bern to Basel - we found the family car! This is a part of the train designed for kids. It literally has a play area for children! Our girls played nonstop here during that leg of the trip.
We had a wonderful trip as a family, but we were also very happy to come back home and get back to routine! The girls have been enjoying being home again and playing with their new dollhouse.
Comments