Honeymoon in Alsace

You’re neither in France nor Germany—nor even Switzerland. You’re traveling through one of the most delightful honeymoon destinations: Alsace, a captivating blend of influences, customs, scents, colors, and traditions. Here, forests and plains intertwine, revealing churches, villages, and timber-framed houses that look as if they’ve been pulled from a distant past. It’s a tiny world to explore hand in hand from the first light of dawn, where each stop promises a unique experience for your honeymoon.

Your first, almost obligatory stop—named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988—is a capital with a two-thousand-year history that made it France’s most important inland port. In this enchanting setting stands the counterpart to its famous Parisian sister: Notre Dame Cathedral. Begun in the 12th century, its multicolored stained-glass windows and the rose window on the main façade form a visual narrative of the Bible’s most emblematic episodes. Poets and writers have celebrated it, Goethe adored it, and Victor Hugo praised it as “a marvel of grandeur and grace.”

Once home to millers, tanners, and fishermen at work, this charming quarter now delights with its distinctive half-timbered houses, quaint shop signs, navigable canals, and trees mirrored in the water’s calm surface. No visit is complete without the Pont du Corbeau. Nicknamed “the Bridge of Torture” by the Germans, it was where thieves, murderers, and even the merely embarrassing were punished before a watching crowd. Dark yet magnetic—like the nearby Palais Rohan, which housed four generations of cardinals and was built between 1732 and 1742 in the style of Versailles. Even Queen Marie Antoinette rested here.

Two hundred kilometers of vineyards and cellars await, inviting you to pause and delight your palate. Essential stops include the Musée Lalique, opened in 2011 in the town where the famed glassmaker founded his workshop in 1921. The only museum of its kind in Europe, it houses 650 pieces from the renowned Maison de Cristallerie. Further on lies the “land of the storks.” Obernai is not just a fortified town or a bustling market hub, nor merely a maze of narrow lanes and 13th-century ramparts—it is the heart of the Bas-Rhin.

Filmmakers and Disney animators chose Riquewihr as the setting for their fairy-tale scenes. It’s impossible not to be captivated by the fortifications encircling the 16th-century houses or the medieval gate that houses the Archaeological Museum. The Cour de Berges still features the old prison complete with a torture chamber.

Or, better yet, the renowned town of Colmar, where the 15th-century Old Customs House commands attention on the Grand Rue. It steals the show beside the Covered Market—the heart of local crafts—and the Lauch River, whose many tributaries gently lap the banks of homes adorned with picturesque flower boxes.

Mulhouse is home to the Musée de l’Automobile, the world’s most prestigious car museum. Bugatti, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes… all gather here to dazzle visitors with their origins. Celebrated beyond Europe for its factories, the city blends historic charm with cutting-edge innovation. Ettore Bugatti’s personal Royale takes pride of place. Renovated in 2006, the museum uses multimedia installations and interactive exhibits to transport you back in time—you can start a vintage car or even change a Formula 1 wheel. Spread over 25,000 m² (17,000 m² under one roof), it displays around 2,550 vehicles from at least 98 brands. And for anyone eager to get hands-on with vintage engines and cars without venturing far… there’s plenty of driving experiences and workshops right here.