If you love art, it’s hard not to love Berlin. There are numerous museums, but there’s art beyond them, too, from the streets to a cemetery. Here are three amazing art experiences I had outside a museum’s walls:
This was perhaps my favorite Berlin activity. Our guide, Kurtis, led us around the streets of Kreuzberg, showing us graffiti and street art, explaining various styles and techniques, and teaching us about the different artists and their works. Kurtis is a graffiti artist himself, and I appreciated getting an insider’s perspective into the culture. I learned more than I thought there was to know about this kind of art, from the three types of graffiti to the unwritten rules between artists.
After a few hours of walking (and bussing and subwaying; Alternative Berlin keeps it local), we headed to the artists’ warehouse in far East Berlin to create our own works. They had hundreds of stencils for us to choose from, which we cut out, and then they showed us a few different spray paint techniques to use on our canvases. My mom and I both had so much fun designing our pieces.
East Side Gallery
Sitting right out on the street and free of charge is the East Side Gallery, a 1.3 km section of the Berlin Wall covered in over 100 paintings. It officially opened in 1990, less than a year after the Wall came down, and the works were restored in 2009. I went twice during my month in Berlin, captivated each time by the provocative works of art, each unique and powerful.
American artist James Turrell created an ethereal light installation for the burial chapel in Dorotheenstädtischer cemetery. During the summer months, it’s only possible to view the installation with a ticket for the accompanying lecture, which takes place in English once a week.
The talk, which features background about the artist, the installation, and the cemetery, begins during what’s known as the blue hour. As the lecture finishes, so does the lighting program, and for 30 minutes, you sit (or stand, if you wish) and observe as the light—on the walls, the altar, the alcove behind the altar—cycles through different combinations of colors. I found it meditative and beautiful.
One of the things I enjoy about We Roam is that we stay in apartments, which means our housing is outside the main tourist area. Not only does this give you a sense of what it’s really like to live as a local, it lets you explore a completely different area of the city–especially key in an enormous place like Berlin.
If you find yourself traveling to Berlin for more than a couple days (which you definitely should!), I’d recommend skipping the hotels in Mitte and grabbing an Airbnb in Neukölln instead. I fell in love with my neighborhood, and here are a few of my favorite spots:
Where to Eat Breakfast or Brunch
Cabslam is open every day except Wednesday from 10 am until 4 (5 on the weekends), and they serve breakfast all day. Strawberry mint pancakes, fried goat cheese and bacon biscuit (real American-style bacon, no less), insane home fries…come here if you need to fuel up for an adventure or recover from the one you had the night before.
Where to Eat Dinner with Friends
Txokoa: difficult to pronounce but delicious to eat. It’s a Basque-style tapas bar–perfect for a group because the more dishes you can order, the better. If you’re interested in the special, order it right away because they do run out. I’m still dreaming of the wild garlic and potato croquettes with a delightful orange sauce.
Where to Eat a Fancy Dinner
Eins44 doesn’t have a Michelin star (yet?), but it’s definitely one-star Michelin quality and perfect for a nice evening out. There are two menus set up as suggested six-course dinners, but what you actually eat is up to you–between three and six courses, mixed and matched among the menus. The listings only give you a sense of what you’re about to eat; “spinach, chicken, and horseradish,” for instance, turned out to be a sort of spinach puree on one plate and a bowl of gorgeously rich chicken broth. I found the surprise to be part of the fun. And the wine pairings, NB, were the best I had all month.
Where to Drink
Any of the bars on Weserstraße will do. I adored the slighty decrepit, La Vie Boheme feel of the back rooms lit entirely by tall candles. The server would replace the candles as they burned down, just as she would refill your empty glasses. If you need a starting point, try Tier with its array of seating options.
Where to Relax
Whether your idea of relaxation involves lying in the grass or kite surfing, check out Tempelhofer Feld, an airport-turned-park. As you can imagine given the park’s first life, it’s expansive and flat. The runways make perfect tracks for sports, and the grass is thick and luxurious. I’d go on a cloudy day, though; there’s not much shade.
Where to Get a Tattoo
I considered it as I walked by Unikat each day, but I didn’t quite pull the trigger on my second tattoo. One of my fellow travelers did, though, and can vouch for the skills of their artists. And if you aren’t attached to a particular design, you can get cheaper ink on Flash Fridays, featuring a rotating selection of their own creations.
Where to Buy English-Language Books
With two locations, north (Pflügerstraße 63) and south (Braunschweigerstraße 66), The Berlin Book Nook has you covered. They have a good, wide-ranging selection of used, English-language books in an appropriately packed space. The staff is friendly, and the prices are reasonable. What’s not to love?
I hope to find myself back in Neukölln soon. Until then, go explore for me.
Last Friday, I set off alone for a German road trip adventure. I had a rough start: I’d scoured the car rental sites looking for an automatic (I know–I’ve tried to learn how to drive a stick…someday, I hope) and thought that I’d found the perfect deal with Sixt. But when I got there, they told me that I couldn’t rent the car I’d reserved because my license was issued less than two years ago. They were baffled by my explanation of moving states and having to get a new license; I was baffled by this ridiculous rule. It took nearly two hours and a lot of yelling, but I finally hit the road…in a far shittier car than I’d anticipated, but oh well.
ON THE AUTOBAHN
The Autobahn is the German highway, and it’s achieved mythic status for many in the States. I have to admit I was a little disappointed–there are in fact speed limits on much of the highway. A friend of mine has the mailed traffic ticket to prove it (I may get one soon as well, who knows). But moreover, there’s just a shit ton of road construction. It felt like every few miles, the lanes were reduced and narrowed to the point where I was gripping the wheel in a panic. The fact that there were two sets of lines on the road didn’t help matters; many people straddled lanes as they drove. It also poured rain on half of my driving days, making speed impossible.
Yet there were a few stretches where it lived up to my expectations. I couldn’t do much in my go-kart of a car–there were times when I was in the far right lane going 150 kmh (about 93 mph) while other cars whipped by me. It’s a far more active sort of driving overall. If someone is moving faster than you, you’d best get over.
BREMEN
Because of the delay, I didn’t arrive in Bremen until around 4 pm. But that was just enough time to do what I wanted to, and I was pleasantly surprised by the town. My hotel, the Atlantic Grand, was perfectly situated just steps from the main square, which was completely adorable.
I started off with a visit to a small museum. Bremen houses the first museum dedicated to the work of a female painter, the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum. While I enjoyed her expressionist works, I really loved the temporary exhibition of Slawomir Elsner, his works featuring subtle crosshatching and a blurred, vague effect, as seen at right.
I then wandered through the Schnoor, the oldest part of Bremen and very picturesque. There are a ton of shops and galleries; I had to seriously resist temptation. I settled on ice cream instead, in the Schnoorkuller flavor–it’s traditionally a cake, but it worked nicely in a cone.
I wandered back through the main square and snapped the obligatory pic of the Bremen Town Musicians statue. I kept wandering into the less pretty, but more functional, part of town, and since I had a little time to kill before dinner, I read on the grass for a while beneath the Kaffee Muhle, a windmill turned cafe. I also took my favorite photo of the trip there:
I had dinner at Grashoff, a little bistro that was perfectly fine. Then I watched the sun set over the river and went to bed to prepare for the next day’s drive.
KASSEL
Kassel is the main reason I embarked on this trip. Every five years, the city hosts Documenta, a massive, month-long art exhibition spread out over many venues across town. 2017 brought Documenta 14, and with it, the Parthenon of Books: a life-sized replica of the Parthenon in Athens, constructed from 100,000 copies of banned books and built on a former Nazi book burning site. I came across an article about it on Facebook, noticed it wasn’t far from Berlin, and decided I had to go. And so here it is, in all its glory:
My visit to Documenta 14 suffered a bit from my lack of time to plan. I really needed a couple of days to see more of the exhibition. But it was early afternoon when I arrived, the booklet describing the various exhibits was 50 pages long, and every venue I saw had a line wrapped around the block. So I decided to be satisfied with getting to see what I most wanted to, and my only other touristy stop in town was the Grimmwelt.
The Grimmwelt is a museum dedicated to the Brothers Grimm, and it’s nearly as magical as the stories. The building itself is lovely, as you can see, and they have exhibits set up from Z-A, many of which are interactive. In addition to seeing some old documents and household objects, you can talk to a magic mirror on the wall and walk through a forest of trees that whisper at you.
The town was a little overrun with art lovers, so I wasn’t able to get dinner reservations. I wound up at a pizzeria (pizza is never a bad idea), notable only for its giant portions, and walked some of it off on the mile and a half trek back to my hotel. I wouldn’t stay at the Grand La Strada unless I had to. It’s allegedly four stars, but it’s stifling, and my room had crimson shag carpeting that I was reluctant to walk on.
I almost had a very quick stay there indeed. My final stop on the trip was supposed to be the famed Neuschwanstein Castle. The night before I set out, the forecast was clear. By evening in Bremen, the forecast was for nonstop rain when I was supposed to go but spotty the day before. I contemplated leaving Kassel at 3 AM to get there by opening hours, a day earlier than I’d planned. But by dinnertime in Kassel, the forecast was fairly wretched for both days, and I decided I had to abandon my castle dreams. It was incredibly frustrating to come so close, but I thought it was better to let it lie than spend hours of effort when it would likely end up disappointing me. So I went ahead and slept in, then drove on to my final town.
ROTHENBURG OB DER TAUBER
Rothenburg odT is a tiny tourist trap of a medieval town–but it is, admittedly, very cute. The Burg-Hotel, where I stayed, was absolute perfection, from the exterior, to the sweet elderly man who insisted on carrying my suitcase up three flights of stairs (not pictured, sorry, haha), to the view from my window.
There isn’t much to do in the town except wander. There’s a small Christmas museum and a preserved medieval home-turned-museum, but neither seemed worth the price of admission. Instead, I simply wandered, through the park that gives you an outside view on the walled city…
through the center of town…
and through a narrow walkway on the walls themselves for a rooftop-level view:
Dinner that night was the best of the trip, at the Hernschlosschen restaurant (part of a hotel). Popcorn soup, a perfectly (not) cooked steak, and truffle fries with actual shavings of truffle. The dream, basically.
And with the perfect meal, my road trip came to an end. Though I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to, I did thoroughly enjoy all that I saw. And just the road trip itself was an accomplishment for me. I travel by myself frequently, but there are still many things I’ve been hesitant to do solo–renting a car in a foreign country was one of them. As this trip progresses, I’m slowly expanding the boundaries of my comfort zone.
When I started researching things to do in Berlin, I was awestruck by the number of museums. I haven’t done the tallies, but it rivals (possibly surpasses?) New York in terms of sheer quantity. My mom came to visit last week, and since she’s an art historian, we decided to tackle as many as we could.
If you want to do the same, I highly recommend the Museum Pass–29 Euro for 30 state museums in three days. Yep, challenge extended. It doesn’t cover everything, which I’ll explain below, but it’s worth the cost if you want to museum hop.
Hamburger Bahnhof focuses on contemporary art, and it was my favorite museum we visited. My love for it started when we walked up; I adore the contemporary light installation on the exterior that contrasts with the traditional building. It has a permanent collection that includes Warhol’s absolutely massive Mao, as well as works by Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Joseph Beuys, and Anselm Kiefer.
It also houses many temporary contemporary art exhibitions. I’ll be honest–a lot of contemporary art leaves me cold. One exhibit consisted of a room with multiple wooden crates, and that sort of thing always makes me feel like Tom Hanks in Big: “I don’t get it.” But there were a couple of absolutely beautiful exhibits as well. In one, you walked downstairs into a dim room with a piano and fake snow covering the ground. Snow fell on you as you entered, and on one wall was a lovely animated film with a girl playing the piano in a room with snow.
The exhibit I most enjoyed, pictured on the right, was a dark room with benches against one wall where you could sit. A tiny bed was illuminated, and multiple projectors shot questions onto the walls in different languages, like the thoughts you have as you try to fall asleep, by turns funny and thought-provoking.
Museum Island
The best known collection of museums in Berlin is gathered on “Museum Island.” It consists of five museums: the Altes Museum, Neues Museum (not to be confused with the currently closed Neue Nationalgalerie), the Alte Nationalgalerie (anyone else think Berlin needs some new museum names?), the Bode-Museum, and the Pergamon. A sixth museum will join in 2019.
On a practical note, there is an 18 Euro pass that covers all of these museums, so if you have just a couple days in Berlin, that might be a good idea. But if you want to visit my fave Hamburger Bahnhof, too, then spring for the Museum Pass.
The Pergamon is Berlin’s most popular museum, and it has the lines to prove it. Buy a timed entry ticket to avoid a lengthy wait. (*Protip*: If you buy the Museum Pass, you can get a free timed ticket using the “Pergamonmuseum frei: übrige” option.” That took me half an hour or so of Googling to sort out; it’s not at all intuitive.)
The two most famous displays in this museum are the Pergamon Altar, which is currently being refurbished, and the Ishtar Gate, which is truly stunning. The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate to Babylon, constructed in 575 BCE. It towers over you, filling the room, and it’s gorgeous, covered in a lapis lazuli mosaic. Don’t hate me, but I don’t have a picture for you–to me, it’s something best experienced in person. I appreciated it more standing in front of it, contemplating an ancient civilization, than I ever could from the bare fact of its appearance.
Our other Museum Island stop focused on romantic and Impressionist painting–more of the former than the latter. There are several works by artists you’ll recognize; I particularly enjoyed the “another mansplainer” expression on the woman in the Manet on the left. But the bulk of the pieces were by German artists with whom even my mom was unfamiliar–I think this is one of the joys of visiting museums in different countries, but you may disagree.
We didn’t visit the other three Museum Island spots. I’m sure they’re lovely, but they just don’t contain works in which we’re particularly interested. The Bode-Museum features coins, Byzantine art, and sculptures; the Altes Museumhas antiquities; and the Neues Museum has Egyptian and early history work, including the bust of Nefertiti.
Whether or not you love art, though, you should stroll through Museum Island; the buildings themselves are lovely, including the Bode-Museum at right.
Kulturforum
Another set of museums is clustered into the Kulturforum, but unfortunately, we didn’t make it there. One of the main attractions, the modern art-focused Neue Nationalgalerie, is closed for refurbishment until 2019, so the only museum that really tempted us was the Gemäldegalerie, which houses old masters like Caravaggio. The other offerings, such as the Musical Instrument Museum, were much lower on our arts and culture wish list. Once the Neue Nationalgalerie is reopen, though, I’d definitely prioritize this complex.
Charlottenburg
The final museum cluster sits around Schloss Charlottenburg, which, while lovely (see left), unfortunately isn’t covered by the Museum Pass. Mom and I aren’t so into furnishings, so we decided to pass. Nearby, though, are the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, featuring works by Dali and Goya among others; the Berggruen Museum, with Picasso, Klee, and more; and the Bröhan-Museum, housing art nouveau and deco arts and crafts. While I’m sure we would have enjoyed all three museums, we visited on the afternoon of our last day, completely exhausted, and only made it into the Scharf-Gestenberg–and to be totally honest, we didn’t even make it up the stairs there.
There are a number of smaller museums scattered around the city to visit as well, featuring everything from design to sculpture to photography; you can find a complete list here. We did visit the tiny Bauhaus-Archiv. With just two rooms, we only spent a brief 20 minutes there, but there’s a nice gift shop and cafe.
And the Museum Pass collection extends beyond art. Before Mom arrived, I visited the Museum für Naturkunde, or Natural History Museum. You might find it a bit small, particularly if you’ve been to New York’s Natural History Museum. But I have a not-so-mild T. rex fascination, and they have Tristan, the third-most complete skeleton in the world.
History Museums
There are also a number of museums in Berlin focused on the history of the city. We visited two of them that aren’t part of the Museum Pass but are well worth a visit.
The Mauermuseum at Checkpoint Charlie tells the story of the wall and the people who attempted escape from East Germany–in everything from specially remodeled cars to a hot air balloon. It has the most information I’ve ever seen in a museum; the walls are absolutely covered with placards in different languages. While it’s overwhelming, it’s also extremely informative.
The DDR Museum teaches you about life in East Berlin–and believe it or not, it makes learning about Communism fun. The exhibits are very interactive, with drawers and doors you can pull open and full reconstructions of rooms, ranging from a kindergarten to a prison cell, that you can go inside.
WHEW. That’s it for my museum roundup. You could easily spend all your time in Berlin going from one to the next, but there’s so much else in the city beyond the museum walls. Stay tuned…
Most of the time on this blog, I’m extolling the wonders of some place or another, adding another line item to your must-see travel list. But since we all have limited time and money, I think it’s equally important to tell you when something isn’t worth your finite resources–and in my humble opinion, the flea markets of Berlin fall into that category.
Let me just say upfront that not everyone would agree with this assessment. Several of my fellow travelers had a grand time on Sunday. So if you’re in Berlin for a long time, go ahead and check it out for yourself. But if you’re just here for a long weekend, I’d pass. And if you’re hoping to find antique or vintage gems, I’d definitely pass.
I was super excited to flea market hop on Sunday; it’s one of my favorite pastimes. I managed to hit three of the many, many markets Berlin hosts. For comprehensive lists, check here or here. But I’ll be the first to admit that I have high standards for flea markets. My grandparents owned an antique shop, and my biological dad spent years buying antiques at auctions and selling them at flea markets, so I know a thing or two about quality merch. I’ve visited markets all over the world, and they’re not created equal. Two of my favorites are in Florence and Buenos Aires; Madrid is mostly junk.
So on Sunday, I visited the most well-known market at Mauerpark, the Antique and Book Market near the Bode Museum, and the monthly Nowkoelln Flowmarkt, since it takes place in my neighborhood.
1. Mauerpark
This is the best-known market in Berlin, featured prominently in the guidebooks–which you could see many attendees clutching. If all you want is to while away an afternoon, eating some street food and enjoying colorful characters, then the market is worth a visit. There’s a large open park next to the stalls where they have outdoor karaoke in the afternoon, the food stalls are plentiful, and there’s amusement to be had everywhere, from observing the hipsters crowding the “Haha You’re Ugly” clothing booth (that’s what it’s really called; I’m not being mean), who are trying on neon windbreakers from the early 90s, to listening…running away from…the man playing a tuba who has no fucking idea how to play a tuba.
But, as previously established, I’m a flea market snob. If I were living in Berlin permanently, I could see myself giving this place a browse–there were a couple nice pieces of furniture here and there, several booths that had English language books, and many booths selling vinyl, if you do that. But a lot of the booths felt either generic (the same tote bags, meh jewelry, and prints of photos you could easily take yourself that you see at a lot of these markets) or just really low quality (so much crappy clothing). There were very few booths with genuinely interesting merchandise thoughtfully displayed. Instead, several booths had masses of people digging through bins of junk (see above photo!) or featured stuff that no sane person would want (see right).
A few Roamers happily spent the afternoon here, hanging out and watching the karaoke and such. I did a fairly quick lap and headed to the next stop on my hop.
2. Antique and Book Market
As you can see from the photo, this market was delightfully less crowded than Mauerpark. Of course, it was also much smaller, with just two rows of stands lining a single street. The quality was much higher, but unfortunately I didn’t find what I was looking for. I collect antique teapots, and while there were many teacups, a couple of nice sets, and one very adorable sugar pot, there wasn’t a teapot to be found. (I make it hard on purpose, though–if they were lying around everywhere, my home would be overrun.) And while I HIGHLY recommend this market if you can read German, there weren’t any English language books on offer–understandable, but disappointing nevertheless.
3. Nowkoelln Flowmarkt
To be honest, I could tell just from the market’s name that this was probably going to be a mess, but since it’s in my adopted Neukolln neighborhood and only takes place once a month, I decided to check it out. I don’t even have a photo of this one because it was so ridiculously packed. They have booths set up on either side of a sidewalk, so there’s not room to stop and browse; you just have to shuffle along with the stream. But no matter because I didn’t see anything I wanted to stop for–one “booth,” for instance, consisted of four battered handbags and two old trumpets.
To be fair, though, the giant pans of paella looked amazing–grab a plate of that, sit by the river to enjoy it, and ignore the frenzy around used t-shirts.
So to sum up, you should visit the Berlin flea markets if you:
Read German.
Live here and would like to brave the crowds in the hopes of finding a cute end table or augmenting your vinyl collection.
Want to eat some street food.
Enjoy bad karaoke.
Aside from that, feel free to do something else with your Berlin Sunday–stay tuned for more tips on that front. (And speaking of tips, have you signed up for my newsletter yet? You can do that in the sidebar for more suggestions, anecdotes, photos, and fun facts about the places I visit.)
I’m not just being lazy with my post title here; they really do say hallo, and it’s a mercy because every other German word is beyond me. But language struggles aside, we’ve been here two days, and I’m a little obsessed with Berlin.
I was definitely ready to leave Prague. It has its highlights (sign up for my newsletter if you want more on this and some helpful tips for visits there), but I don’t think there’s enough to fill a month. A few Roamers were grateful for this, appreciating a more leisurely pace after months of travel. Perhaps it’s because it was only my second month, perhaps it’s because I hail from New York, but I was not into the activity shortage.
Berlin feels like the opposite of Prague: not nearly as pretty to look at but bursting at the seams with things to do. I spent several hours today just reading guides and organizing my calendar.
I’m in the neighborhood of Neukolln (Noy-colin, roughly). Part of it is known as Little Istanbul, and on some streets, you can feel the Turkish influence. But it’s also been gentrified over the last several years, and the hipsters have put their stamp on it. The intersection my apartment sits on has a bar on one corner, coffee shops on two corners, and a teeny cinema on the fourth corner.
If you turn left down that intersecting street, it’s just a line of adorable restaurants, bars, and cafes, with a couple tattoo parlors for good measure. My first night here I had delicious Basque tapas (yes, I miss Barcelona!) and then I went on a lovely date in a little bar where the back room had no wired lighting and was instead illuminated entirely by candles. They had tall tapers in traditional holders, and the server would replace them as they burned down, in addition to delivering your drinks.
Probably my three favorite things in life are books, food, and movies, and Berlin is overflowing with all three. There are at least ten bookstores just in my neighborhood, and our coworking space for the month, St. Oberholz, is also a boutique publisher. There are a dozen Michelin-starred restaurants in the city and so many more bits of yumminess beyond that; I would recommend every restaurant I’ve eaten at so far. And in the summer, the city is filled with open air cinemas, many of which show movies in English or in their original German with English subtitles.
I’m also basking in the freedom I feel here. It’s no secret that I’ve had a tough time adjusting from living on my own and working at home to being frequently surrounded by dozens of people. Berlin is a sprawling city, and we’re very spread out here. My closest neighbor is a 10 minute walk, and we have access to multiple coworking spaces. I can see the group as much as I want, but I don’t feel the same pressure to that I have in the previous months. It feels more like the best possible version of my regular life.
I’m really excited to explore this month. Hope you’re excited to come along for the journey. If you have any Berlin tips, let me know!
After a few hours of walking (and bussing and subwaying; Alternative Berlin keeps it local), we headed to the artists’ warehouse in far East Berlin to create our own works. They had hundreds of stencils for us to choose from, which we cut out, and then they showed us a few different spray paint techniques to use on our canvases. My mom and I both had so much fun designing our pieces. 
Where to Eat Breakfast or Brunch
Where to Eat a Fancy Dinner
I started off with a visit to a small museum. Bremen houses the first museum dedicated to the work of a female painter, the 
I wandered back through the main square and snapped the obligatory pic of the Bremen Town Musicians statue. I kept wandering into the less pretty, but more functional, part of town, and since I had a little time to kill before dinner, I read on the grass for a while beneath the 
The Grimmwelt is a museum dedicated to the Brothers Grimm, and it’s nearly as magical as the stories. The building itself is lovely, as you can see, and they have exhibits set up from Z-A, many of which are interactive. In addition to seeing some old documents and household objects, you can talk to a magic mirror on the wall and walk through a forest of trees that whisper at you. 
and through a narrow walkway on the walls themselves for a rooftop-level view:
uple of absolutely beautiful exhibits as well. In one, you walked downstairs into a dim room with a piano and fake snow covering the ground. Snow fell on you as you entered, and on one wall was a lovely animated film with a girl playing the piano in a room with snow.
Our other Museum Island stop focused on romantic and Impressionist painting–more of the former than the latter. There are several works by artists you’ll recognize; I particularly enjoyed the “another mansplainer” expression on the woman in the Manet on the left. But the bulk of the pieces were by German artists with whom even my mom was unfamiliar–I think this is one of the joys of visiting museums in different countries, but you may disagree. 
has antiquities; and the 
The final museum cluster sits around 
there, several booths that had English language books, and many booths selling vinyl, if you do that. But a lot of the booths felt either generic (the same tote bags, meh jewelry, and prints of photos you could easily take yourself that you see at a lot of these markets) or just really low quality (so much crappy clothing). There were very few booths with genuinely interesting merchandise thoughtfully displayed. Instead, several booths had masses of people digging through bins of junk (see above photo!) or featured stuff that no sane person would want (see right). 
