Marche aux Puces

This post is dedicated to the "Marche aux Puces" at Porte Clignancourt. The flea market is located in the 18th arrondissement on the outskirts of Paris and can be reached by the end stop of metro line 4. The area is notorious for its "working class" vibe (whatever that means, I have never been one to define people and therefore places by class), but it is true that one ought not to go wandering around there at night.

During the day it was pleasant enough, although you still have to wade through the endless array of faux Louis Vuitton sellers and teenagers trying to sell you dodgy metro tickets. I avoided these for the most part with a firm shake of the head and a no-nonsense kind of walk, but I must warn you that there is a bridge beneath which you must pass to get to the market, and it is host to numerous dodgy characters. Keep firm hold of your bag. But being practically a native Parisian nowadays (or so I tell myself) this is nothing new. In fact it's a day to day fact of living in any large city.



The market is huge, and begins with the more tacky kinds of clothes, cheap jewellery and knock-off designer labels. You have to wade through this (although no doubt you could find a nice thing or two here, and prices were very cheap) to get to the better Marche Vernaison, which is home to la brocante (antiques). The variety of things to buy here was astonishing, and the vibe was more relaxed which may have been due to the larger spaces and nonchalant attitude of the antique sellers. To give you some idea of the place, I will tell you that you can find anything from: vintage clothing and vintage copies of Marie Claire and Elle, 19th century original book editions, genuine silvery, expensive crockery, hand-me-down furniture, exquisite paintings, many a birdcage and golden harps (yes, GOLDEN HARPS). Some parts were very serious and I got the impression that only experienced bidders would stand a chance haggling; other stalls were more of a mish mash of various goods, some of it plain awful. I have to apologise for the quality of the photos but most sellers weren't too keen on my taking any and I got told off a few times. I was tempted to buy a gorgeous leather bag but talked myself out of it, the same can be said for little oh so French knick knacks such as vintage sweet tins.

One day I would like to return to one of these Parisian flea markets and find things for my house - I could build up a beautiful collection of useless but terribly chic objects. There are some things there however that I would hesitate to buy even if I could afford it due to their lavish price tag (some things literally cost thousands of euros, and I blanched when I saw a price tag of 400 euros for an old suitcase).

I wouldn't have thought that a flea market would have been a huge attraction for tourists, but plenty of tourists there were and for good reason. If you do go, be sure to get to the good bits and not just the knock off outskirts of the real market.

A bientot xxx