The Église des Dominicains has been the second most important church in Colmar since construction began in 1289, when the Dominican friars who had already established their monastery nearby decided they needed a proper place to worship. That monastery, incidentally, is now the Unterlinden Museum, home to one of Alsace's greatest collections of medieval art.

The church's most celebrated work stayed put. Martin Schongauer's Madonna of the Rose Bush, painted in 1473, shows the Virgin in a vivid red dress against a luminous golden sky, a small masterpiece that has outlasted the turbulent centuries of German and French rule that repeatedly reshaped this city.

Look up at the soaring Gothic windows and notice the absence of a bell tower, just a modest spire at the roof's centre. VoiceMap's self-guided audio tour of Colmar places the church within the city's layered story, tracing how Dominican ambition shaped the streetscape visitors see today.