There’s an old market close to where I live that’s steeped in history and out of step with much of Berlin. From the beekeeper with an uneven number of fingers, to the flower seller so crooked with age that every step seems hard-won, to the crooning baker whose laughter lines run deep, it is a showcase for the passage of time.
I love it there. Not only for its unique collection of traders, but for its refreshingly unboutique approach that includes tables carefully laid out with slippers made for shuffling, ample-bosom bras and gleaming white hip-warming knickers geared towards the more mature woman.
And I love it for the customers who having paid their dues to the daily grind are now at liberty to move at a pace they dictate for themselves. People who’ve known this city for longer than I perhaps ever will, and whose lives have played out against the backdrops of World War II, the construction and fall of the Berlin Wall and more recently, German reunification. Read on or listen…