Viktualienmarkt

About this place

The Viktualienmarkt is a daily open-air food market in the heart of the old town, two minutes from Marienplatz. Its name comes from the Latin victualia, provisions. The market originally stood on Marienplatz itself until the square could no longer hold it, and in 1807 King Max I Joseph ordered it moved here. It now covers some twenty-two thousand square metres with around a hundred permanent stalls, and many of the trading licences have stayed in the same families for generations. Stalls are grouped by trade: fruit and vegetables, cheese, meat and sausage, fish, bread, honey, spices, flowers, and shops for imported goods. At the centre stands the maypole, striped blue and white and hung with painted boards showing the old crafts; the first one went up here in 1962, and the six big Munich breweries donate a new one every few years. Around the market, fountains honour the city's folk singers and comedians, the best known being the one for Karl Valentin. In the middle sits a beer garden of around six hundred seats under chestnut trees, and it works by a rule worth knowing: the beer poured rotates among Munich's six major breweries, changing every five or six weeks, and you may bring your own food to the tables provided you buy your drink there. Be honest with yourself about prices: this is a city-centre market that tourists come to, and the fruit and cheese cost a great deal more than they would in any neighbourhood supermarket.