A French fairy tale town, it's like stepping into Howl's Moving Castle

✨A French fairy tale town, it's like stepping into Howl's Moving Castle✨ 🪄When you see the town in this picture, do you feel a sense of déjà vu? If you are familiar with Hayao Miyazaki's work 'Howl's Moving Castle', then this scene will not be unfamiliar to you😉. Remember when Sophie was walking alone on the path, being teased by two soldiers, and Howl descended from the sky like a hero🕺, with blond hair and blue eyes, wearing a cloak, appearing beside Sophie. He took Sophie dancing in the air above the town, lightly stepping over the rooftops, overlooking the entire town, everything was dreamily beautiful💕. 👧The most impressive to me was the scene where they danced in the air🎈, those rows of pointed timber-framed houses, scattered in an orderly fashion, looking down from above, both romantic and spectacular🎆. And this scene is not a figment of Grandpa Miyazaki's imagination, its prototype is the town of Colmar on the Alsace Wine Route in France! Compare the pictures, isn't it almost identical😲! Those timber-framed houses are just like two peas in a pod! Here, it seems that you can see Howl carrying Sophie flying over the rooftops🕊️! 🏡Over the past millennium, the Alsace region has changed hands between France and Germany several times, its history is an epic of German-French contradictions and integration📚. Speaking of Alsace, does it feel familiar to you🤔? Let's read the text below together and see if it can evoke fragments of your memory📃: 'After the grammar lesson, we started the handwriting class📝. That day, Mr. Hamel gave us new copybooks, all with beautiful round script: 'France' 'Alsace' 'France' 'Alsace'. These copybooks hung on the iron rods of our desks, like many small national flags fluttering in the classroom🚩. Everyone was so focused, the classroom was unbelievably quiet🎵!' 'The Last Lesson' cast a melancholic and solemn hue over Alsace😢. But in fact, before the 17th century, the Alsace region belonged to the Holy Roman Empire (the predecessor of Germany), and people mainly spoke German📄. After the famous Thirty Years' War in Europe, Alsace came under French rule. And in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, France was defeated, and Alsace belonged to Prussia, until Germany was defeated in World War II, Alsace returned to the arms of France💪, and formed the current border between the two countries along the Rhine River🗺️. 📖If cities can also be mixed-race, then Colmar is undoubtedly a beautiful town with German-French mixed blood🌸. Carefully calculated, this place belonged to Germany for a longer time than it belonged to France. This also explains why Colmar's architectural style is full of Germanic charm🏰, those timber-framed houses and the magnificent Gothic churches with pointed spires all bear strong Germanic marks🎨, as well as many street names with German suffixes and the dialect mixed with German and French, all have a reasonable explanation🤝. ✨Colmar also has many attractions worth visiting🎡, such as the Little Venice area, where the waterways crisscross, and the colorful timber-framed houses are reflected in the water, picturesque🖼️; there is also the Unterlinden Museum, which displays the rich history and culture of the Alsace region📜; and the Saint Martin Church, whose towering spires and exquisite carvings are awe-inspiring👏. Come to Colmar and experience the unique charm of this fairy tale town💖!