Pig Market Well, Marktplatz @museum.de

M: Grunting porkers, farmers haggling with dealers, sealing the bargain with a handshake, and a lively hubbub of voices at Frickentalplatz, a square less than 600 metres, or two thousand feet from this fountain.

F: Until the beginning of the 2010s, Europe’s largest market for weaner pigs was held in Niederstetten every Monday. Hundreds of pigs were transported here on a weekly basis, offered for sale and sold.

M: But times changed. Fewer and fewer pigs were sold at the traditional market. And at some point, the trade was discontinued.

F: The Pig Market Fountain is a reminder of an old tradition that always attracted a lot of tourists. It shows a scene that would have been replayed a countless times at the market: a farmer haggling with a livestock dealer about the price for his two piglets. The fountain was created by the sculptor Karl Ulrich Nuss from Weinstadt-Strümpfelbach.

M: Now, if you cross the main road, you’ll come to the Protestant church of St. James with its unusual bell tower.