Everyone who loves the hunt for trashy treasure has their own flea market story. My fabulous finds have more often than not taken place at Cligancourt in Paris or Ile sur la Sorgue, a small town about 20 minutes away from Saint Remy de Provence.
I love the hunt. Antiquing (that’s what I call it) has always been as much about the search as the find. I think it’s about that dusty smell that comes with objects of age, I think it’s about imagining what you can do to restore a particular piece and make it yours, I think it’s about meeting like minded souls who love the chase just as much as you do and I think it’s about finding a bargain. Antiquing is a total experience: it’s not about speed and spending money.
Cligancourt, or Le Marche aux Puces de Saint-Ouen is reached by taking the magenta coloured metro Line 4 to the station Porte de Cligancourt. It is advertised as being one of the largest flea markets in the world – if confusion and sensory overload are the measures of size then this market wins hands down. The area that it covers is enormous and the best way to tackle the vastness is to accept that you can’t see everything in one visit. For the die hard ‘antiquer’ like me this is tough advice to follow – these flea markets make me feel like a child in a candy shop – but I know from past experience that unless you focus in on one area you are most likely to finish the day empty handed. Too much looking means too much choice and too much choice means too much indecision…for me anyway.
One of my best days ever was at Cligancourt. It was 1995 and I was in Paris with my three children. We four had struck a deal. If I would ride up to the very top of the Eiffel Tower with them, then in return, they would come antiquing with me. (I am fearful when it comes to heights and become irrational when I leave the first floor..ok a slight exaggeration but you get what I mean. Tall buildings with observation decks and me are not a good fit. Meg Ryan waiting for Tom Hanks I would not have been; that, ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ romance would have been doomed from the start. Sorry I digress, but I wanted to point out that it was a fair trade between my three and me. A morning of fear and terror for me and a day of excruciating boredom for them. They have always been great sports and very indulgent of their mother who likes to spend hours and hours on what they would have considered back then to be a fairly dull pastime…)
