Farmers' Market and other Mannheim, Germany Shopping Tips

Mannheim Farmers' Market is the largest open air market in the area. Many restaurants chefs go there early in the morning to buy fresh products. It is held year round, Tuesday,Thursday and Saturday morning.During May you can get asparagus there,late summer, early fall it's a good place to find lots of fresh mushrooms. From November on they offer chestnuts for roasting, very good.In addition to vegetables, bread and meat you can also get lots of fresh flowers there.
The picture shows the fountain in the center of the market square.



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Address: Marktplatz Mannheim

The main shopping area in Mannheim is the street leading from the watertower to the Paradeplatz, the center of the downtown area. While streets in downtown Mannheim have no names, but letters and numbers, this street is known as "die Planken", meaning planks, wooden boards. The name is easily explained: Before paving the streets, it was all muddy when it was raining. And back then, with the long dresses the ladies were wearing, this was very uncomfortable. So the ladies complained to the city authorities, they should do something to make shopping nicer and more comfortable. The city authorities had wooden boards put down and soon everybody was talking of doing their shopping on the planks, the Planken. The name stuck, even though today there is not a single wooden board in sight, and the street still is the main shopping street.
You find outdoor cafés there,a cinema, a large bookstore, several clothing stores, shoe stores, pharmacies and many other stores.



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Address: Right in the center of Mannheim

One of my neighbours is from Syria and she had given me a very good recipe, but I needed one more ingredient, Sesame paste. In the area left to the farmers' market, the G blocks, there are many grocery stores selling food from all over the world.
There is a large Turkish bakery with lots of sweets and bread. Very colourful cakes are on display in the window, looking like wedding cakes.

I was looking for the Arab store which I knew to be close. On my way there I passed a Spanish and a Portuguese store, an Indian one, two more Turkish shops and a general Asian one.

The Arab store had exactly what I needed,but it took a while until the assistant understood
what I was talking about. Her German was not very good, I don't speak any Arabic at all, but
in the end we managed. Of course, I couldn't leave without some of the very sweet Arabic
cakes.



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Theme: Food and Drink