Cernay

Cernay is a town of about 12,000 in the Haut-Rhin, where the Doller valley opens onto the Rhine plain, 15 km from Mulhouse and 6 from Thann.

It sits at the southern end of the wine route and at the foot of the Vieil-Armand, and its history is largely the history of being in the way: it was destroyed in the Thirty Years’ War, again in 1914–18, and again in 1944–45. What survives is worth the stop, and what is around it is worth more.

The town

• Porte de Thann — the thirteenth-century gate, the only substantial piece of the medieval walls left, holding a small museum of the two world wars
• Église Saint-Étienne — rebuilt in the nineteenth century in neo-Gothic after the older church burned
• The Thur — the river through the town, with walks along it

The steam railway

The Train Thur Doller Alsace runs restored steam locomotives 14 km up the Doller valley from Cernay to Sentheim, from May to October. It is worked by volunteers, the rolling stock is period, and it is one of the better preserved lines in eastern France.

Vieil-Armand

Ten minutes up the mountain, and the reason many people come to Cernay. The Hartmannswillerkopf — the French called it the Vieil-Armand — is a spur of the Vosges at 956 m that dominates the plain, and in 1915 both armies decided it had to be held.

Some 30,000 men died there over four years of fighting that moved the front line by almost nothing. The site is one of the four French national monuments of the First World War: a national cemetery with 1,264 graves, a crypt holding the bones of 12,000 unidentified men, and kilometres of trenches, tunnels and concrete positions preserved in the woods.

A Franco-German historial opened in 2017. The trenches are freely accessible and it takes a couple of hours to walk them properly. It is a sobering place and one of the most important sites in Alsace.

Getting to Cernay

• By train — on the Mulhouse–Thann line, with the tram-train running through to Mulhouse city centre; about 20 minutes.
• By car — off the N66. Mulhouse 20 minutes, Colmar 40. See parking in France.

Around Cernay

• Vieil-Armand / Hartmannswillerkopf — 10 minutes up
• Thann — 6 km, with the finest Gothic spire in Alsace
• Soultz and Guebwiller — 10 and 15 km north on the wine route
• Grand Ballon — 30 minutes, and the Route des Crêtes beyond it
• Écomusée d’Alsace — 20 minutes at Ungersheim

When to go

May to October, for the steam train and for the mountain. The Vieil-Armand is at 956 m and can be in cloud when the plain is clear; check before driving up. November 11 is marked there properly.

See Alsace.

Weather in Cernay

Updated: 28 August 2026