Viktualienmarkt, the open-air market

Find the blue-and-white pole and stand beside it. You are at the Viktualienmarkt, Munich’s larder since 1807, when King Maximilian I Joseph ordered part of the market held on Marienplatz, which had grown too small, to move here. The name comes from a learned Latinism of the time: “victualia”, provisions.

1A market that was saved

Today it covers some 22,000 square metres and has more than a hundred permanent stalls: fruit, cheese, butchers, fish, spices, bakeries and flowers. After the bombing of the Second World War there were plans to put up tall buildings on this valuable site, but the city decided to rebuild the market. In August 1948, in the middle of severe shortages, residents furious about prices ended up pelting the traders with their own goods, in what is remembered as the “egg battle”.

2The maypole and the beer garden

The Maibaum, the maypole, is donated by Munich’s big breweries and is replaced every so often. The figures along its sides show trades and scenes of Bavarian life. At its foot, the beer garden solved a very local dilemma: so as not to favour any one brewery, the beer rotates between the city’s breweries, and a sign at the bar tells you which one is on tap.

People come here to shop, but also to sit down with a stein and a plate of cold cuts.

Dotted around the market are six fountains dedicated to Munich’s popular comedians and singers, among them Karl Valentin’s, from 1953, and that of his stage partner Liesl Karlstadt.

3What to look for

• The figures on the Maibaum, each with its own trade.
• The Karl Valentin fountain, a thin man with a long nose, often with flowers in his hand.
• The Church of the Holy Spirit, which closes off the market to the north.