I most often travel solo, but I never really travel alone.
Dad was with me today for this one, at least for a little while. He’s been gone almost 14 years, and never visited France, so I didn’t expect to find him here. And yet there he was.
Still feeling a bit off kilter in the wake of yesterday’s migraine, I started my walk into town wincing at the bright sun glaring down. It’s the first truly sunny day I’ve had since I’ve been here.
I began by strolling through and exploring the streets around Little Venice. It’s a cute neighborhood, with pastel dappled half-timbered houses, mostly restored to and maintained in a way that respects their humble history.
A small crowd of visitors huddled around the bridge for the obligatory photo opportunity. In the dying days of winter, with spring not yet emerged, the scene isn’t bedecked with flowers the way Colmar is depicted when you seek out information about it online, but it was still beautiful.
I imagine that the diminutive bridge over the river is nearly impassable in highest points of the tourist season.
This is a region that is all about wine and food, so it shouldn’t surprise me that there aren’t a ton of “sights” to see.
But there are photo opportunities all over this place.
Among the few museums is the Bartholdi Museum, in the former home of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who designed and built the Statue of Liberty.
That was fascinating and occupied a good part of the morning. I knew next to nothing about him, but he often sculpted on extreme scales.
If anything surprises me about Colmar it is the near absence of coffee shops. There are plenty of patisseries, but I don’t always want to go to a patisserie, where I might feel a pressure to buy a pastry. Sometimes I’d just like to sit and nurse a tea for a while.
So after lunch, I instead I strolled and explored, and in doing so I happened upon the Musée du Jouet. In English the name sounds like museum of joy, but it actually means “toy museum.”
With little else to do, I stepped in, thinking “ok this might have something to entertain me for a while.”
And that’s when Dad showed up to accompany me on my tour, and this museum wouldn’t have been the same without him.
I saw his eyes light up looking at this display. He told me about about erector sets, and while this may not have been exactly the erector set he knew, because it is the French version, it was darn close.
And he told me enthusiastically about the tricycle he once played on when he was a child.
He really got a kick out of this electronic set from 1990, which came out well after his childhood (and mine). He told me again about how he learned electronics in the Navy, so this sort of thing was right up his alley.
And he reminded me of the time he labored over his lathe making tops that were similar to those he played with when he was a child. The end products looked vaguely like this ancient model on the left.
This small steam engine really got him excited. It’s the sort of thing he would have picked up at an antique store and brought home, as he was an aficionado of mechanical curiosities. Mom would have probably asked what he needed it for.
We continued on, beyond Dad’s memories to my own.
I personally enjoyed looking at the display of toys from the 1980s. Most weren’t things I ever played with, but I remember them well from the commercials that funded my Saturday morning cartoon habit.
And although I don’t recall ever owning any Star Wars toys, I remember their ubiquity and playing with them with friends. I’m certain Gen’s Luke Skywalker action figure still has grains of sand in its joints from burying it in the mud behind our elementary school.
And I smiled fondly at some of the building blocks that mirrored those I played with as a child, knowing they were old even when I stacked them, one on top of another.
On the way out Dad pointed to this woodburning kit. “Hey, that’s great. Remember, your brother used to have one of those.”
So I visited the museum of joy today, and I brought my memories with me.
But the best part of it, by far, was walking through the exhibits with Dad.
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