Total Pageviews

Monday, October 24, 2011

Clignancourt......the largest flea market in Paris...............

Jan, Judi, Barb and Pat at the stalls in the flea market.  We actually walked past several vendors set up on the sidewalk outside the flea market.  This is actually one row after another of storage units......some have even installed glass fronts to make their stall look like a little store.  These rows are not in military order...........they are haphazard and the alley ways between them are numbers to keep you from getting lost.  There is also a map for you to use.  ")

Here Judi, Jan and Barb are searching the little boxes for any treasures they can find.  Lots of goodies here, but most were very expensive.

I thought this little row of Donald Ducks was so colorful.........and the cycle bands were a perfect color to pair with them.

The Antique Books market

This antique book market was held at a park (Brassens?).....it was under two separate covered areas with a space in between where people came to sit and watch their children play and ride bikes.  This is another market that we visited twice.  The first time I found two small books:  Van Gogh (not too old....1950) and a postcard book of the art of Toulouse-Lautrec (C.1990).....not antique books, but little treasure for me.  ")

The Flea Market at Vanves

We rode the Metro and then walked several blocks to get to the Vanves flea market.  It was basically up and down both sides of a sidewalk........a very long sidewalk.  ")  We saw everything there....and it is not nearly as large as Clignancourt.  We visited this flea market twice and ended up with such a variety of goods.  The first trip we found a lady selling really old postcards (and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE postcards......postcards were the bulk of my purchases in Paris.....old and new postcards).  I passed up buyin an old book of poetry and some of the others passed up things that we all later wished we had bought.  Thus, the second trip.  ")

Here we are waiting at the corner for Jan and Barb who are taking our photo.  (Fiddle!  I thought you could see the street sign pointing to the Vanves flea market :(        ).     It was HOT standing out there in that sun!  LOL   The humidity was horrible while we were there......most days were "two-shower days".   ")

The Metro.....

On the Metro to the flea market!  We had visited a flea market nearby the day before at Maubert.  Sunday we took off on the Metro to Vanves.  We also wanted to go to the old book market in that area.  Pat looked like the mother duck getting us all through the metro station and gates.  ")  But, we all made it through.....some of us after two tries at the gate.  ")

Dining out

This was our first sidewalk cafe dining experience.  Susan was the only one not present.  We had done so much walking on our first day that her ankle was really giving her a lot of pain.  She decided to stay in her room and rest it.  (She has had surgery on it a few times and has to be very careful with it.)