A thousand years of markets, and a Swedish light
Transcript
People have been buying and selling on this square for about a thousand years. The Grote Markt has held Groningen's weekly and yearly markets since the town was a village called Cruoninga.
The tower watching over you is the Martinitoren, and it has looked down on this square for more than five hundred years. The town hall, with its classical columns, replaced a medieval stone one in 1810.
Not everything here is as old as it looks. In April 1945, during the battle to liberate the city, large parts of the north, east and west sides of the square were destroyed. They were rebuilt bit by bit after the war, and the square has been reshaped several times since. Buses only left it in 2021.
Today, for a few days, it hosts something from much further north: a Swedish Christmas market. In Sweden the season really begins with Lucia, on the thirteenth of December, the name day of Saint Lucia. It grew out of an ancient midwinter festival of light. A girl in a white dress wears a crown of candles and leads a procession of singers through the dark.
That suits this place. In the darkest part of the year, a thousand-year-old market square fills up with candles, warm drinks and people. Some traditions travel well.
