The Herestraat, the city's pedestrianised shopping street, runs south off the Grote Markt and contains most of the city's everyday shopping needs and 'standard' Dutch clothing stores and chains. This is where you'll find Hema, Blokker, de Bijenkorf, and so on.
Other shopping streets (Oosterstraat, A-kerkhof / Brugstraat, Folkingestraat, Stoeldraaierstraat / Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat) extend out from the Grote Markt and the Vismarkt. Their side streets (Zwanestraat, Grote Kromme Elleboog) are often worth a look too. All streets within the central canal ring are low traffic due to restrictions - but watch out for cyclists, who don't often pay attention to pedestrian crossings.
The most picturesque shopping street is called the Folkingestraat; it runs south from the Korenbeurs (the former corn exchange) at the end of the Vismarkt towards the museum bridge and the Central Station. It has a lot of little shops full of firsthand and secondhand little gifts, intercultural foods and great books.
The lovely Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat has different characteristic shops including plenty of art galleries, a travel bookshop, two branches of a great coffee and tea chain, an excellent independent bakery, a particularly nice cafe, shops selling toys and games, and a few second-hand furniture and clothes shops. It used also to have the best home made chocolate shop in town. However, that's now moved round the corner to...
... Grote Kromme Elleboog, which also has shops selling beer, herbs and spices, coffee, cooking utensils etc.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Groningen
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Groningen - updated May 2024
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Groningen Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
