Street market

Every Monday and Saturday is a street market day in Nijmegen. One of the main streets in the city center fills with stalls offering almost everything and nothing.  

For someone who likes walking between these stands it's quite a fun place to be. At least the first time. You can get here whatever you like: fresh vaggies and fruits, flowers, cheese, nuts, fish, bread, sweets, pots, cups, bedding, clothes, batteries, chains and locks for the bicycle, CDs, DVDs, plastic jewelry, bags, shoes, watches, different kind of weird electonics etc, etc. Basicly all the same that you would expect to find at an avarage polish marketplace. If that's somehow not enough, around the St. Stevens Church there's also a flea market.

I personally love the little red tent with a delicious, sweet smell of caramel spreading all around. No matter how hard I'd try, I just simply cannot refuse myself a fresh crunchy Stroopwafel with a soft, melting toffi inside. Whereas the trailer with the sign Hollandse Nieuwe is giving me a hard time even thinking about it. This is exactly the name of a fresh harring. Traditionally the Dutch people swallow the whole little fish holding it's tail. Brrr!... Terrible, simply terrible. I guess I'll write about it a bit more in may, when they caught the young herrings and the Hollandse Nieuwe is really nieuwe (new). 

bus stop surrounded by the stalls

Normally there are buses going on the Burchtstraat, but on these two days they have to change the route. On Mondays and Saturdays no vehicle can really get between all these stands. The bus stops are literally surrounded with th stalls. I don't mind. I'm a happy owner of a bike and the only thing I need to be taking care of is not bump into the crowd walking there and back. I don't want to be responsible for smashing a walker.

The market itself may not be very fascinating. It's the atmosphere that I like. Shouting sellers who try to convince everyone that their product is the best, people idly wandering the same articles they found the week before and before. Two days so different from the whole rest of the week. Like forgetting about the normal  rhythm of the city center. On these two days it feels more like in some quiet, little town. That's at least how I feel when I carry on my bike through the middle of the crowded street, holding a warm stroopwafel in my hand and smiling.