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Speed east from Paris on train to Champagne
Faster and faster
France's TGV network dates back more than 20 years. The first line, connecting Paris with Lyon, was inaugurated in 1981. The addition of each of the network's now six main lines has shrunk France, putting destinations like the Mediterranean port city of Marseille and Bordeaux, on the Atlantic coast, nearly in Paris' backyard.
And they keep getting faster. A special train with a 25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels broke the world speed record for conventional rail trains, 357.2 mph, on a stretch of the TGV Est's track.
Stay on the TVG Est beyond Reims and you leave Champagne country and head into sweet white wine territory — Alsace.
Just 12 miles from the German border, the town of Colmar is a picture-perfect hybrid of French and German culture, with typical German half-timbered houses and broad French promenades and parks.
It's about a 20-minute walk from the station into the historic city center. A small tourist bus that stops in front of the station will get you there as well — with running commentary in English, French and German detailing the history of local landmarks.
By bike or by boat
Better yet, rent a bike at a stand in the Champ de Mars park, a 10-minute walk from the station. The bikes — which come with baskets perfect for stashing bread, cheese, sausage and other picnic essentials — cost $7 for half a day and $8.50 for the entire day.
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Moderately priced cafes radiating out from the cathedral are great stops for invigorating midmorning shots of espresso.
Hop back on your bike for a quick visit to the Unterlinden Museum, housed in a 13th century Dominican monastery. The jewel of the museum's collection is the Issenheim Altarpiece, a triptych with layers of panels depicting the lives of Christ and several saints that unfold like a massive book. The paintings, by 15th century German artist Matthias Grunewald, look like Technicolor dreamscapes: haunting, expressive, disturbing.
Another nearby museum, the Musee Bartholdi, pays homage to sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi — a Colmar native and the designer of the Statue of Liberty. Sketches and clay mock-ups of Lady Liberty make up the core of the collection.
If you're museumed out, head for the Petite Venise, or Little Venice neighborhood — a canal flanked by charming German-style buildings with exposed crossbeams and flower baskets overflowing with geraniums. You can even take a ride in little wooden boats that look like truncated gondolas.
But don't expect to be serenaded.
"We don't do that kind of thing," one boatman told me.
Endless vineyards
Restaurants serving local specialties like a beef, potato and white wine stew called baeckeofe and saumagen, or stuffed pork stomach, line the canal.
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Local vintners hawking crisp local white wines rub shoulders with organic farmers offering homemade sausages, hand-picked berries, yogurts and cheeses. Bakers, drawing from the best of the French and German traditions, sell both crusty baguettes and oversized, doughy pretzels.
Most of the region's vintners are based outside Colmar, amid the endless rows of vineyards that surround the city, but a handful of wine makers do their production in Colmar.
Domaine Karcher is one of them. In a small compound tucked into a side street in old Colmar, Georges Karcher and his family turn chardonnay and pinot noir grapes into seven varieties of wine.
Karcher offers daily tours of his wine cellar, with new stainless steel vats and century-old oak barrels. No visit would be complete, of course, without a tasting. Karcher's fruity Riesling and his sweet Gewurtztraminer — which both run for about $10 a bottle — are not to be missed.
And after sampling half a dozen varieties of Karcher's wines, the high-speed train ride back to Paris ought to go even faster.
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