The Koïfhus
A coloured tiled roof and the meeting place of the ten towns.
DimiTalen — CC0 · Gzen92 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · fotogoocom — CC BY 3.0 · fotogoocom — CC BY 3.0
The central square of old Colmar, turning on the **Koïfhus** — the old customs house of the fifteenth century with its coloured tiled roof, where the city's goods were stored and taxed and where the council of the ten allied Alsatian towns met. Around the square stand Renaissance timber houses with leaning frontages and wooden galleries, and at its centre is the **Schwendi fountain**: a nineteenth-century monument sculpted by **Bartholdi** — Colmar's own son, who years later carved the Statue of Liberty — showing the soldier Lazarus von Schwendi raising a vine stock, a reference to the story that he brought Tokay grapes to Alsace. Today the square is the heart of public life in Colmar: cafés and restaurants with tables in the open, a market, and in December one of the city's best-known **Christmas markets**. It is a place to sit rather than to visit: order something, sit for half an hour and watch.
A coloured tiled roof and the meeting place of the ten towns.
Bartholdi carved it years before the Statue of Liberty.
Open-air cafés in the heart of the old town.
Place de l'Ancienne Douane, 68000 Colmar
The Koïfhus (Old Customs House)The Koïfhus is Colmar's oldest public building (1480) and its old economic heart1 minute walk4.8
The Tanners' QuarterA street of timber houses that are **strikingly tall, narrow and long** in the m1 minute walk4.9
Maison PfisterThe Pfister house is Alsace's most famous house outright: built by a rich hatter2 minutes walk4.8
Bartholdi MuseumIn an old family house on the merchants' street, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was 2 minutes walk4.5
House of the Knights of Saint JohnA Renaissance house built in **1608** in old Colmar, with one of the strangest f2 minutes walk4.2**Auguste Bartholdi was born in Colmar in 1834**, the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty in New York and of the Lion of Belfort. The city is full of his work: the Schwendi fountain in this square, the Roesselmann fountain, the monument to General Rapp and others — you pass his sculptures without knowing it. His house is now the **Musée Bartholdi** in the centre, showing his drawings and models for the Statue of Liberty, and is among the essential things to see in Colmar. At the northern entrance to the city stands a scaled replica of the statue, put up for the centenary of his death.
It is not a destination in itself but an **unavoidable hub**: every route through old Colmar crosses it, linking Little Venice, the Tanners' Quarter and the Saint-Martin church. The right use of it is as **the rest stop**: sit at a café for half an hour between two sights and look at the Koïfhus, the fountain and the timber frontages around you. For photographs, the best angle is from the southern end with the Koïfhus behind and the fountain in front.