Good morning!
Good morning.
We are off to the Paris Flea Market and I love wandering around flea markets.
And I’m even more excited for this one
because I read that it’s actually one of the biggest in the whole world.
So we’ve arrived at Les Puces.
Les Puces!
Les Puces! -Les Puces.
Which means “the fleas.”
And it’s actually a bunch of little markets that make up the whole flea market.
And we’ve stopped at this one first, which is called Vernaison.
Or Marché…
Marché Vernaison.
And it has a lot of little objects, textiles, smaller things like paintings instead of big furniture.
So this is where we’re going to start looking around.
I did find out by the way that this is the biggest antique market of its kind
in the whole world.
It actually covers 7 hectares
and they get between 120,000 and 180,000 visitors every weekend.
That’s over 2 million visitors a year.
That’s insane and I get it.
That’s a lot of people.
This is one of my favourite things to do is just wander around with a coffee.
So we got here early to beat the crowds
and it doesn’t seem too busy so we’re going to look around.
I’m in heaven.
There are so many amazing stalls here.
I think this is the best flea market I’ve ever been to
and I feel like I’ve been to quite a few.
And I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface too.
Yeah.
We’ve been through maybe four rows in like an hour
and my favourite so far are the place selling beads.
They have like hundreds and hundreds of kinds of beads.
I don’t even know what I’d do with them but I like them.
And then also they have tons of old paper and maps and just, I don’t know,
things that you could use for other things.
Old stationery…things like that.
The textiles are gorgeous.
So tons of old things you could use as tablecloths or napkins.
Lots of old clothing, which is beautiful.
Old lingerie and nightgowns and things like that.
I love the camera store.
They have an old Leica camera that I’m in love with.
It was 500 euro.
500 euro…we’ll let it pass for that.
We’re like we’ll dream about that one.
It was great!
But then we also found cheap thrills at a pin store
where they had all of these types of pins organized and they were 1 euro.
Well starting at 1 euro so we picked up a couple that we both really liked.
And I just feel like there’s something for everyone.
Even if you don’t normally like coming to antique markets,
I feel like there’s something here that you would find that is just perfect
and seems like it’s meant for you because there’s so much to see.
It’s also just a nice quiet place to wander around.
It’s very chill.
All the shop owners are very nice.
Very relaxed.
Just a good vibe.
Yeah - this is a perfect Saturday or Sunday morning activity.
We’ve been here for several hours.
And even though we’ve spent a lot of time, we’ve only really explored Vernaison.
And I don’t feel like we’ve really even seen much.
No I don’t think we’ve seen that much of it.
There’s also a really cute little restaurant called Chez Louisette,
which looks so cute inside.
So if you feel like having a coffee or something to eat if you’re here, it looks great.
We weren’t hungry so…
They have boeuf bourguignon.
Yeah.
Enough said, right?
But all of the sellers have been really friendly and nice and wanting to talk and,
I don’t know, I just… I could spend hours here honestly.
Days.
Yeah.
Because this place is really overwhelming, I wanted to tell you quickly our favourite spots
so if you don’t have a lot of time and you’re here, these are the absolute must-sees.
I think the best place to start would be stalls 29 and 31.
They are full of old but never used trinkets and you can find everything.
Little things if you don’t want to spend a lot of money or have something heavy in your suitcase.
You can find something super cool.
I’m pretty sure if you go in, then you’re going to find something that you like.
It was one of my favourite spots.
The beads, if you want to look at how beautiful they look all laid out,
or maybe buy some to make something, the beads are stall 6.
And another place that we really liked was number 198
and they sell a lot of coffee grinders and beautiful enamelware.
So things to put your coffee or tea or sugar in.
Enamel coffee pots and just beautiful stuff.
We also saw really beautiful antique knives that said Paris on them.
Very elegant looking and they were at stall 125.
And then where we actually bought some things was at stall 140.
The lady there was so lovely.
And you can find little pieces for sewing with
like buttons or threads…different textiles.
She had a lot of old things from the schools and so we ended up buying an old map game
that was to teach kids about geography and it’s of Scandinavia.
Part of Scandinavia.
And we also got something to help kids learn with vocabulary.
Which I think would just be…either of them would be so pretty framed on the wall
or to send to someone as a little memento of coming to the flea market
so that’s what we got.
The other stall where we bought some pins was at stand 88 - Pins Aux Puces.
And they have amazing different pins and keychains all organized into different themes.
So I got a bunny pin
and one in the astrology section for Leo because I’m a Leo
and I always have like my… my Leo necklace on.
And Marc got a cat.
And there was so much to look at.
We spent probably at least 20 minutes just looking at everything they have.
After looking around at some of the different markets,
I would say that Vernaison is definitely my particular favourite.
The other ones that we looked at seemed to be a lot…a lot higher end
with very beautiful old furniture.
And the price tags were in the five figures sometimes or more.
So a different kind of…
So a different kind of shopping in those areas.
If you just want to kind of browse
and look at smaller items with a smaller price tag as well that you can actually fit in a suitcase…
More travel friendly.
…and also if you don’t have a lot of time,
I would say just zero in and come directly to the Marché Vernaison because it is the best.
I think it’s more fun too.
Yeah I think so too.
Well this was a dream come true.
I wanted to buy a lot of things but, of course, being a nomad,
you don’t have anywhere to put them.
You just decorate your imaginary Parisian apartment.
But window shopping was fun.
Yeah.
And it’s a great opportunity to talk with locals and get a sense of history, of course,
because all of the items or most of them at least are historical.
Got a story.
So that was really, really fun.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed coming here too.
If you’re in Paris, this flea market is open on weekends and Mondays
but apparently Monday is not so good because a lot of the stalls are closed
so come on a weekend.
I don’t think you’ll regret it, we certainly don’t.
And hopefully you enjoyed this video as well.
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and we’ll see you in the next one.
Bye!