I spent yesterday (Wed) at the downtown Wiesbaden open-market (cheese, fruit, vegetable stands set up in the downtown square).
I hadn't really been to the market since October of last year.
So things had changed.
Most of the forty-odd stands used to be 'bundled-up' on the south end of the square (on the side of the Rothaus)....at least in the pre-Covid era. Police would show up early in the AM...remove the security posts, and allow the trailers to pull in and set up. You could assess the area to be used as 1.5 times the size of some football field.
The set-up now? It's an area of about 3.5 times the size of a football field, and things scattered around three ends of the Rothaus.
I had an hour to waste, and simply went to get a cup of coffee, and my intentions were to sit at one of the twenty-odd metal benches which surround the square.
Well....NO. On market days, the benches are considered 'verboten'. For Americans, that means forbidden.
To enforce this....three young ladies have been hired and they wear black 'security' jackets, and they march around different parts of the square....letting 'sitters' to know that sitting on the benches is forbidden.
Sitting on the steel rails of the fencing? That's forbidden too.
Even if you were 60 feet away from any fruit stand or vegetable wagon? Yes, that's forbidden too.
I walked to the extreme corner of the square....at last 70 ft away from any fruit stand, and within five minutes....here came security to chase me away from the bench I was sitting on.
So I walked to some stone steps about 100 ft away (mostly hidden from the square), sat down, and there quietly sipped my coffee.
What they were paying the three security ladies? Probably at least ten Euro an hour.
Most all of the benches are at least fifty feet away from any wagon....so none of this makes much sense.
The last time I make this venture into town on Wed? Yeah, probably.
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