Argentan

Sint-Niklaas

Schongau

Lucca

Colmar

 Twin Towns: Colmar

Colmar is an important town of 68,500 inhabitants in the Alsace region of France, situated about an hour's drive south of Strasbourg. Colmar was twinned with the Vale of White Horse in 1978.

It is the capital of the Alsace wine-producing region and is close to the river Rhine and the Vosges Mountains. The old town is particularly beautiful with its cobbled streets and many half-timbered buildings of the 16th and 17th centuries.

One of the world's major artworks, the Issenheim Altarpiece, is on display in the Unterlinden museum, making it the most visited art museum in France, after the Louvre. Bartholdi, designer of the Statue of Liberty, was born in Colmar and his house now contains an exhibition of his works.

The Route du Vin leads from Colmar through many picturesque medieval wine villages where you can taste the local wines and sample the cuisine of the area and also see the nesting storks.

Like Abingdon, Colmar is twinned with Lucca, Schongau and Sint-Niklaas. It is also twinned with Györ (Hungary), Eisenstadt (Austria) and Princeton (USA) and has other partnerships with Takayama in Japan and Shaki in Azerbaïdjan.