Day 18: Colmar

Welcome

Yesterday we did a big drive from Paris to Colmar, stopping off for a quick Castle pic in the delightful town of Kayersberg-Vignoble.

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The first order of the day was to find a baguette so we stopped at 'La Conquête du Pain' before getting on the highway. Tristan earned an early point for organising a backseat buttered baguette breakfast for everyone.

📸 Jonathan Pearce

We had a beautiful drive to Colmar along the immaculately-manicured French highways flanked by endless farmland, forest, and wind turbines. The main highway into Colmar was closed so we made a diversion that sent us through 'Kayersberg-Vignoble', a small town famous for its wine-making. Jonathan bought a gingerbread man and we managed to sneak a quick castle peek before we continued on our way.

📸 Tristan Jeremy Deck

📸 Elizabeth Stokes

Our show was at 'Le Grillen', a wonderful rock venue that is part of an arts complex. It was great to experience European hospitality again, arriving to a greenroom stocked with bread, cheese, wine, and freshly-picked cherries from the promoter's tree. Hans Pucket gave us a lovely surprise by driving over from Switzerland to see us and we played a sunny game of carpark cricket with them before the show. The support act was the wonderful and renowned Calvin Johnson, founder of the influential indie label 'K Records'. He played a creative and boisterous set that Jonathan described as 'some very alternative shit'.

Our audience was a complete contrast to one in Paris the night before, standing quietly and respectfully, and failing to respond to Liz and Jonathan's best attempts at banter. We had a great show nonetheless and chatted to some very friendly people afterwards.

Beth of the day goes to Ben for pulling a 6hr driving shift, and setting up the merch desk really nicely.

Slick stuff Ben 😎