Les Puces (Flea Market)

One nice Saturday morning, Paul and I decided to journey to north Paris and check out the famous flea market, Les Puces. It's actually located just outside of Paris, a few blocks north of metro stop Porte de Cligancourt. You have to walk through a couple blocks of stalls with cheap clothes and other uninteresting merchandise before getting to the real thing. It's been around a few a few centuries and is the largest antique market in the world, receiving between 120,000 to 180,000 visitors each weekend. It's only open Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning, so go early to avoid the worst crowds.


Mostly we saw furniture of all sorts, but there were a lot of smaller items ranging from jewelry, signs, toys, clothing, and even keys. Mostly it was fun to just wander around and people watch while we spotted things we liked and made fun of other strange objects from years ago.

One fun moment was spotting a crew filming a piece for Bargain Hunt. It's a show from the UK where they go to flea markets and garage sales and find things for cheap they think they can sell for more at auction. They're well known in England, so we think they're starting to come over to the continent where they can still get a deal.

James Lewis, auctioneer from Bargain Hunt