Murnau's Obermarkt is the main street through the town centre, lined with painted Baroque and Biedermeier facades that make it one of the finest examples of Lüftlmalerei — the Bavarian tradition of decorating house fronts with large-scale figurative paintings — in the region. The street descends gently from the castle to the lower market, with the Alps visible at the end of the perspective on clear days.
The cafes and shops here are unhurried and local in character. The market takes place on Thursday and Saturday mornings and sells produce from the surrounding farms. The whole ensemble is best appreciated in the morning light, which catches the painted facades from a low angle and makes the colours vivid, before the day-trippers from Munich arrive on the afternoon trains.