Summer Saturday

Summer is Munich can be tricky. Schedule an outdoor event and there's a good chance it can be subject to a violent thunder storm. But not today...

I need to explain what the term Schwabinger Hof-Flohmärkte 2011 means. Imagine 97 different locations in one Munich neighbourhood where the residents are invited once a year to improvise a 'flea market' in the courtyards of their appartment buildings or on the pavement in front.

It is amazing how stuff much people find which they are suddenly inclined to put on sale for a few Euros. It is a wonderful celebration of neighbourliness and think some of my photos (Flicker set here) capture something of the atmosphere.

Note, perhaps, that this is by no means a low-rent neighbourhood. My own 25 square metres are overpriced. And yet residents find it fun to clear out their attics and basements and reveal thereby their consumption patterns. Many shoes, ladies, appeared to have been bought but never worn! And it is, I think, amusing that some of these courtyard flea markets are almost cheek by jowel with shops on Hohenzollernstrasse like Vero Moda, Zara, C.O.S., Buffalo and many others which must be seen as the 'usual suspects' of international retailing.

My stroll through the quartier took me finally to the beach... In front of the university tons of sand have been dumped to create a lovely chill out zone next to Schwabing's main boulevard...

And the thunderstorms promised by the forecasters failed to appear...