Flea markets in France’s Braderie, Marche aux Puces are whimsical melting pots

Ornate chandeliers, candlesticks and vases are almost overwhelming at this vendor’s flea market space. (Janet Podolak)

Flea markets in France proved a giant step beyond someone else’s castoffs when my daughter Sascha and I visited in September.

She went to gather ideas and materials for her Scarlett Moon Hats, (scarlettmoon.shop), all one-of-a-kind creations. Much of her summer was spent making them for a number of fall markets.

This detailed witch hat from Scarlett Moon Hats is decorated with antique trim found in a Paris flea market. (Sascha Nelson)

Flush with frequent flier miles earned from a 16,000-mile round-trip flight to Guam earlier this year, Sascha figured those miles would help finance a visit to the annual Braderie, a 48-hour flea market in Lille, near France’s border with Belgium. The largest —and probably the oldest — flea market in Europe, it dates from the 12th century, when masters gave cast-offs to their servants to sell or use. It draws millions each year to the town for a weekend in September.

A shady street in Lille is closed to traffic and lined with vendors for the Braderie, Europe’s oldest — and one of its largest — flea markets. (Emma Ezzaddine for Hello Lille)

I told her about the legendary flea markets of Paris, where she’d never been, and asked if I could join her, offering to help with expenses.

Sascha, a queen of research, found a mobility scooter for me to use in France, and rebooked her flight so we could go together.

I scootered for miles through the crowds as she shopped the Braderie, where entire neighborhoods in Lille are blocked off for pedestrian shoppers. Certain streets are designated for items from antiques to clothing, comic books to board games and bicycles to vegetables.

Sascha Nelson snaps a selfie amid the youthful nighttime crowd at the Braderie in Lille, a 48-hour flea market near France’s border with Belgium. (Sascha Nelson)

Those who come to shop must go with a plan because even though it runs 48 hours, there’s no way to cover it all in that time. Restaurants and bars move their operations to picnic tables outdoors, offering hearty but inexpensive meals and lots of beer varieties. Once darkness falls, Braderie turns into a city-wide party, which Sascha said reminded her of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, with bands, impromptu parades and lots of beer.

We didn’t buy much, but we enjoyed Lille, where we saw few other Americans and promised ourselves we’d return at a quieter time.

Returning by train to Paris, we settled into a small hotel in the quiet Bastille neighborhood, centrally located but non-touristy. We’d set aside our weekend for the 20-acre Marche aux Puces in Sainte-Ouen, a famous flea market just north of the city limits with 25,000 vendors.

For Sascha’s first Paris visit, I hoped to revisit my favorite neighborhoods such as Aligre, Montmartre and Saint-Germain-des-Pres and see the progress more than 500 craftsmen had made on the $760 million restoration of the 861-year-old Notre-Dame de Paris. Its spire and some of its spaces were destroyed by fire in 2019.

Due to reopen on Dec. 8, the Gothic landmark made famous by Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” last week took delivery of three bells, including one that was used during this year’s Paris Olympic Games. Scaffolding embraced the cathedral when we were there, but tall barriers around the construction were emblazoned with multilingual details about the ongoing work, much of which could be viewed from below.

Our days in Paris went by quickly. Sascha walked while I used my scooter to reach a cooking class, poke around neighborhoods, visit shops and relax in gardens and sidewalk cafes, all while observing Parisians at work and play.

Stylishly conservative, they were a far cry from “Emily in Paris,” the popular Netflix series. We discovered that Parisian women prefer dresses and artfully tied scarves, not super-short skirts with stilt-like heels. Only tourists wore berets, leggings and sweatpants. And we noticed that women in France go light on the makeup, avoid heavy eyeliner and eschew false eyelashes.

As the big flea market weekend approached, we prepared for the Marche aux Puces in Saint-Ouen, practicing French pronunciations, checking our footwear, gathering sturdy bags for our purchases and pocketing a measuring tape and small bundles of 5- and 10-euro notes.

Artworks and frames await discovery in a vine-covered shop along a cobbled alleyway at the Marche aux Puces in Saint-Ouen. (Janet Podolak)

Although I’d browsed its excellent website, pucesdeparissaintouen.com, and knew we’d find a dozen covered markets, each with many separate vendors, and many streets with open-air booths for their goods, I wasn’t prepared.

The Marche aux Puces absolutely blew me away.

We’d stepped into a vast melting pot of nationalities, complete with their own languages, antiquities, music and foods. Gypsy jazz originated here, where Django Reinhardt once lived, and music is still a living entity in many of its brasseries. Vendor stands overflow with everything from old postcards to Roaring ’20s clothes, staircases to fireplace mantels and military memorabilia to erotica.

A beautiful old sleigh for pushing a passenger on a snowy day captures the imagination. (Janet Podolak)

Its “waste not want not” modality, a seeming mainstay of life in France, is foreign to the society of consumption back home. The diverse Marche aux Puces was a shock to our current realities, cultured by the digitally select sameness of friends and beliefs influenced by algorithms.

We saw fine antiques and furnishings with price tags in the thousands, sought by architects and professional decorators shopping for their wealthy clients.

Its “Attic of the World” nickname was earned by its 1,100 antique dealers, second-hand dealers and art galleries — the largest concentration of art dealers in the world. But we also found plenty of interesting and affordable things among the craftspeople, artisans and sellers of jewelry.

There were entire neighborhoods for gym shoes, scarves, purses, rugs, tableware and concert T-shirts, new and not. Some shops sparkled with chandeliers and cut glass, while others specialized in buttons, colorful yarns and threads. Booksellers and those offering records, musical instruments and comic books were there.

The area has 40 cafes and restaurants in all price ranges and several hotels for those wishing to stay close to the action. Packing and shipping for flea-market finds easily could be arranged.

The Marche aux Puces proved to be a delight for me and a bonanza for Sascha when she found a shop specializing in antique trim perfect for the hats she makes. Fashionistas come here to dream, while costumers for stage and film come to dress casts in period designs.

Begun in 1870 as a Sunday gathering of scrap metal merchants and rag-and-bone men, it has evolved into one of the major attractions in Paris. Since 2001, the Marche has been classified as an Area for the Protection of Architectural, Urban and Landscape Heritage.

This whimsical chicken pitcher, a flea market find, was successfully shipped home by Sascha Nelson. (Sascha Nelson)

We plan to come back, perhaps planning our next visit for one of the festival or concert weekends that fill the schedule.