The Egyptian mummy
The ethnography piece that draws visitors.
Ji-Elle — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jmh2o — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tomasz Bladyniec — CC BY 4.0
Colmar's Natural History Museum is a nineteenth-century-style museum kept as it was, with its old charm: wooden cabinets, taxidermy, skeletons and minerals, and an ethnography section with objects from ancient Egypt, Africa and Oceania gathered by Alsatian travellers — including an Egyptian mummy that draws visitors. It is a fine family museum in a small town: not the modern interactive kind but a museum of museums, showing how museums themselves were a century ago — half its charm. A short, pleasant visit completing a Colmar day, especially with children when the pretty town has saturated their eyes.
The ethnography piece that draws visitors.
A museum showing how museums were a century ago.
11 rue Turenne, 68000 Colmar
Quai de la Poissonnerie (Fishmongers' Quarter)A quay of timber houses in **vivid colours** — yellow, red, blue and pink — lini1 minute walk4.9
La Petite Venise, ColmarLittle Venice is Colmar's jewel: half-timbered Alsatian houses in candy colours 2 minutes walk4.6
House of the Knights of Saint JohnA Renaissance house built in **1608** in old Colmar, with one of the strangest f2 minutes walk4.2
The Tanners' QuarterA street of timber houses that are **strikingly tall, narrow and long** in the m3 minutes walk4.9
The Koïfhus (Old Customs House)The Koïfhus is Colmar's oldest public building (1480) and its old economic heart3 minutes walk4.8Colmar's jewels are its coloured lanes, Petite Venise and the Unterlinden — this museum is a family or second-day addition, not a priority. With children wearied by the town's prettiness, it is their ideal break.