The drive from Zurich to Colmar is the closest and takes just over two hours. It was already afternoon when Xueluo and Dong Qingmei arrived in Colmar, so they drove around the town a few times, first, to find a homestay, second, to find a parking lot for the night, and third, to see the overview of the town. While driving, I looked at the town slightly.

As soon as I entered the town, the strong impression was already in the deepest part of my memory. With wooden houses like building blocks in childhood, churches with pointed roofs, colorful rivers with rainbows, windows surrounded by flowers, and colorful shop windows, the town in Howl's Moving Castle is gradually restored in Colmar.

After the rain in the afternoon, there are no bustling crowds, no noisy streets, the medieval stone roads are clean and tidy, and there are occasionally a few passing tourists and cyclists. A picture freezes the fairytale Colmar. Put down your luggage, park the car, and ride before it gets dark.

Check out several historic buildings in the neighborhood. The first place to go is the Collégile St-Martin (Church of St-Martin) next to the B&B where Snow Falls and Dongqing Mei stayed. St. Martin's Church is in the center of the town, next to a small square, a Gothic church built in the 13th-14th centuries, with a simple and elegant cloister and a bronze spire built in 1572 in the Mongolian style.

Not far from the church, you quickly find the Maison des Têtes, a Renaissance building built in early 1609 and easy to find, as the building is famous for its 105 carvings of human heads on the façade. The avatars have different expressions and are vivid and interesting. Walking into the small courtyard of the head house, I found that it was a five-star hotel.

I wonder if the guests will be scared when they think of people at night. At the end of the street at Reman's House, there is a square, bordered by the former Dominican abbey, part of which is now used as the Musée d'Unterlinden. The monastery was built in 1232 and is located on the side of St. John's Chapel under the linden tree.

The museum exhibits important sculptures and paintings from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance on the Rhine region, including an Isenhain altarpiece painted by Gruneiwald in 1515. After leaving the abbey, it took a lot of effort to find the Maison Pfister, and I asked a few people to find it.

Built in 1537, Pfestée House is a historic feature with exquisite storefronts selling local folk arts and delicacies. Its Renaissance-style forecourt is famous for its Gothic windows and bay belly windows. Because it was not easy to find, I also took pictures of its architectural introduction.

After looking at a few buildings, it was already dark, so I went back to the B&B to get a tripod and took a few photos of the night view of the town. At eight o'clock in the evening, I went to the restaurant I had chosen before, and I wanted to try the famous sauerkraut elbow and white wine here, but when I entered the door, it was full, and there were only four or five tables in the small restaurant. I couldn't find a restaurant around, so I had to wrap my stomach with fast food.

This restaurant (RestaurantlaTabledu Brocanteur) is small but very famous, and TripAdvisor has the number one rating. Although I didn't eat it, I still took a picture of it, and friends who had the opportunity to go to Colmar could try it if they booked a table in advance. I woke up early the next day, and the weather was clear. Hurry to the most elite area "Little Venice". The Cheese River, a tributary of the Rhine, flows through the interior.

On both sides of the river are rows of neat and elegant huts, and the small bridge over the river lies quietly, and ducklings play on the river. Every small bridge across the Cheese River, every dock where a pleasure boat docks, every house near the riverbank, are decorated with flowers and highlight the romantic style. In Colmar, there seems to be an inexplicable preference for flowers.

It is said that this preference stems from the once thriving horticulture here. In those days, many flower merchants used the river to transport flowers, and when the flower boats sailed by, the fragrance of flowers wafted into the homes of the residents, so they bought flowers and placed them on their balconies. In addition to the flower merchants, other traders often sail on the Cheese River in small boats.

Selling their own wares, including butchers, fishmers and tanners. Sometimes, in order to buy fresh produce, the townspeople will choose to take a boat to the farmers' market to buy their favorite items. Thanks to the Cheese River, the quaint city of Colmar has become so lively that it has been given a romantic nickname: Little Venice.

In the morning, Colmar has almost no tourists, just locals hurrying to work and school. Xueluo and Dongqingmei chose a small street by the river to sit down, the street was very narrow, and the stone paved ground was so smooth that it shimmered with a faint light, and it was quiet. The morning light hits a corner of the side street, leaving a beautiful light and shadow for people passing by.

After breakfast at the street shop, Snow Fall and Winter Sunny Weather slowly walked back to the B&B in the center of the town, and every street you passed was beautiful and exquisite, full of fairy tale colors, with candy-colored cobblestone streets and attics, colorful flowers and shutters, and every path was full of evocative sophistication, and everywhere you could see was like oil paintings and postcards.

On the side of the street, whether it is an elderly person riding a bicycle or a child playing on the street, they will warmly greet Xueluo and Dongqingmei. Because I had to rush to Lake Thun in Switzerland that day, it was far away, so I had to pack my bags, and the traffic Colmar was at the junction of France, Germany and Switzerland, and it was some distance from the big city.

It is better to consider going to some of the big cities in these countries. This time, the snow fell and the winter was the first to Zurich, Switzerland, and it only took more than two hours to drive to Colmar and more than an hour by train. It takes more than six hours to drive from Paris to Colmar and four hours by train, which is far from Germany's big cities.

The nearest Munich train is also four or five hours away. Self-driving can be booked on Hui car rental, and trains can be booked on Raileurope, both in Chinese, which is very convenient. There are many accommodations in Colmar, hotels and B&Bs, each room ranging from more than 200 yuan to more than 1,000 yuan. It is recommended to try the B&B in the center of the town, most of which are converted from wooden bars.

Living there is not only convenient access to various attractions, but also to experience the taste of European houses in the last century. Most of those B&Bs are okay with housing and bathroom equipment, but many of them do not have elevators, and it will be more difficult to move up and down with luggage. Hotels and B&Bs can be booked on websites such as "Booking", "agoda" and "Ebiying".

Catering Colmar is a tourist town, catering is very convenient, it is said that there is also Chinese food, but the snow fall and winter beauty have not been found. It should be noted that it closes early in the evening, so it is better to book a table by phone in advance. Colmar's sauerkraut elbow and Alsatian white wine are a must-try. Language: The locals have good language skills, except for French and German.

Simple English is no problem. The best time to visit Colmar is in spring, summer and autumn, and slightly colder in winter. Every year in September, there is a wine festival, and the two-week Colmar Wine Festival is one of the most prestigious wine festivals in the region, with white wines, German beers and a wide range of wine products for the festivities to enjoy.

There is also the Kimchi Festival in September, where kimchi is a type of cabbage pickled in white wine, which has a particularly sour taste. The heaviest luggage Xueluo has ever carried is not the 44-pound silver trolley suitcase, but the mood of missing someone. Every time I want to leave, no matter where I go, no matter how long I go, that feeling of reluctance will always come out.

The weight on my heart is extremely heavy. In the airport in my memory, there has never been a plot that I look back on frequently, and the past will never come to say goodbye. Ten long hours in the cabin, cramped and far from the Internet, perfect for reading a hard-to-swallow book or meeting an interesting person in the water. The story of the chance encounter did not happen, and most of the time the snow fell into a stupor.

The rest of the time I read a part of The French Revolution. FranceFranceFranceIf a person insists on studying, he will realize his ignorance, and Xueluo is lucky to realize that he is ignorant to the extreme. Xueluo was a science student when she was a student, and she hated politics and foreign history very much. At that time, the boy was stubborn and felt that the foreigner's name was too long to remember.

He also thinks that it is meaningless for ordinary people to understand history. So when I went to France two years ago, I didn't know much about this world-famous romantic place, except for what attractions to visit and which museums Xueluo's beloved paintings and sculptures are in. The snow fell in the past, and even the relationship between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance could not be explained.

Went to Europe with such a brain. Later, Xueluo had an architect friend, he studied in Europe when he was young, and it was he who used a simple and popular description to tell Xueluo some superficial identification of European architectural styles, during which he inevitably mentioned European history, so he became the enlightener of Xueluo's understanding of European history, and Xueluo gradually began to learn slowly.

In this process, Xueluo is very clearly aware of one point: if you don't understand the suffering of a country in the past, you can't deeply appreciate its beauty at this time. FranceSnowfall travel is infrequent, and it is extremely boring for snowfall to be filled with only one type of thing, including travel.

Xueluo only occasionally enjoys being a person who cannot be identified on a trip to a foreign land. It's an extremely idealistic and slightly mischievous mentality. Everyone in the streets and alleys is a stranger, no one knows Xueluo, no one remembers Xueluo, no one misses Xueluo, and no one restrains Xueluo.

Although Xueluo is a passer-by, he calmly and sensitively observes the lives of people of different races with different skin tones, hair colors, and pupil colors. If desired, Snowfall can also try to fit into their lives. But in the end, the snow can leave the country and its people behind and walk away without responsibility.

Someone in France asked whether Snowfall preferred Europe or North America. Xueluo really likes the freedom, warmth, and openness that she feels in North America, and the high level of development that is relatively convenient to do anything. But if you have to choose one of the two when it falls, the snow falls more in a country with a long history and deep cultural precipitation. Stroll through the streets of Paris.

A tall building with a history of hundreds of years, and a hotel that is not sure to be built more than 200 years ago, and a small roadside shop to drink coffee in the early morning of the town, only to learn that it is a century-old shop, and its location and family inheritance have not changed in the past 100 years.

Or a local friend takes you to a restaurant, where a dish is still the same as a recipe from a hundred years ago, or when you visit a castle with a history of hundreds or even thousands of years, and learn about the political changes of the time or the gossip of the harem, you can't help but think about the scenes of the French kings and queens living here.

At this moment, the distance you are looking at is the distance they have seen thousands of times, and the stairs you have stepped on are also the stairs they have stepped on thousands of times. France, France, pre-trip preparations, snow falls, pre-trip preparations have been a little careless.

And this time, because of the suddenness of the incident, it was only more than ten days from the time I learned that I was going to France to the time of departure, so it was even more hasty. But there are only four things that matter: visas, flights, routes and hotels. When these four are implemented, most of the stones in my heart are put down. There is a paradox between visas and airline tickets, Schengen visas require the presentation of airline tickets and hotel reservations.

But if you order a flight wine and your visa is denied, isn't the money in vain? The solution is: the air ticket reservation is not paid, and the hotel is scheduled to cancel for free. Snow fall is usually a direct order of wine, and the default visa will definitely pass. It's a shame to say, the snow is lazy, the visas are handled by travel agencies, and the orders for machine wine are also handled by them.

But this time, I was afraid that they would lose time, so I first applied online to make an appointment to submit materials, and this attempt only knew how easy it was to apply for a visa. You can apply by registering an account on the official website of the French visa of the Chinese and Chilean visas. This website is very well done, the typical science student thinking, the logic is clear, the list of required materials and various forms of Chinese, English and French translation templates can be downloaded.

The status progress is marked with different colors, all the information is clear at a glance, follow its process step by step, Xueluo believes that as long as you can understand Chinese, you can apply by yourself, what the applicant needs to do is to provide materials as required. After filling out the application form, you can make an appointment to submit the materials, and you must be on time.

Although it is almost impossible to refuse a legal visa, the materials must be fully prepared. It is advisable for freelancers to write a prospectus in English stating their source of income, preferably with proof. Bank statements must be available, and it is better to attach real estate, car property, and stock transactions together. The issuance of the legal visa is very fast, and the result will be issued within 48 hours after the embassy receives the materials.

It is almost equivalent to "just go", which is very inconsistent with the procrastination style of the French. However, if there is no embassy in your area, the visa application center will collect your documents and send them to the embassy with a round-trip mail time. Xueluo went to Chengdu to submit the materials by herself because of the urgency of time, saving the time that could be delayed by one-way mail and the agency center.

However, I paid an extra of about 500RMB for the bullet train, plus more than 300 for the agency fee, and paid a total of 800 more. Four days before departure, the snow falls to get a visa, and it will be able to go back and forth many times a year, and the next time the Schengen country also signs France, it should be able to get multiple round-trips for several years, so it will be much more convenient to go to Europe. French flight Ctrip buys round-trip tickets from Beijing to Paris in April.