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Marché aux Puces 2: Vanves

Flea Markets 2: Vanves, Paris

Thrift Shopping at Porte de Vanves: Porte de Vanves has one of Paris Best flea markets, it’s a medium sized treasure chest mix of bargain and antique items.

By Yannique http://myparisianlife.com/

If you’re visiting Paris and want to go to a local flea market here you’ve no doubt heard of Marche aux Puce St. Ouen at Porte de Cliancourt – but today I want to share with you another flea market – it’s a smaller less popular flea market in the south of Paris 14th arrondissement called Marche aux Puce de la Porte de Vanves.

If you’re a frugal shopper like me, you’ll be better off finding really cheap stuff here and because of its size it’s impossible to get lost (for anyone who’s been to Porte de Clignancourt, you know what I mean, it’s massive there and has a diverse offering from professional antiques sellers as well as people just trying to get rid of stuff – but it’s easy to get lost, and I’ve found harder to bargain on prices).

This was my first time visiting this particular “marche aux puce”, as the french call it.

Tip: Best to go a bit early, I was there at 10am right after our morning coffee and by the time we were leaving at 11:30 I saw the crowd size increase significantly.

Directions: You want to take the metro Line 13 and get off at “Porte de Vanves” then take a left on this street “Place de la Porte de Vanves” bending at the corner where you’ll see a Bakery ( a Patisserie shop – no doubt you’ll be tempted to go in – we did!), then go down “Ave Marc Sangnier”and you’ll see all the vendors.

Don’t be afraid to stop people and ask “marche de Puce s’il vous plait” – pronoucned [maarchay du pooce sil voo play]

Once you take the bend, there is a very tempting french bakery that had the most delicious looking Eclairs and tartes. The only problem was there was only one server to a long line of Japanese and American tourists who were no doubt in the neighborhood for the marche. I kept our order simple – a croissant for me and a pain au chocolat for le petit Pierre.

You can also get some cash at the ATM machine next door ( I think it was a Societe General), before heading to the marche.

Hope you will enjoy some photos from the excursion I made with my son.

We ended up leaving with a sturdy lemon colored 3 piece Pot set from the 1970s, 2 vases and a Silk dress; all for 11 euros.
Not bad, eh?