Les Puces - not your average flea market

Yesterday, on the recommendation of my Epernay tour guide Gui, I hopped on the metro to Porte de Clignancourt to check out Les Puces, or the famed Parisian flea markets.  After passing the swap meet style market and saying "non, merci" dozens of times to the men hawking faux designer goods (there seemed to be a constant low whispering of "Louis Vuitton" along the entire street), I arrived at Rue des Rosiers, home of the most amazing antiques markets I could ever imagine. Some of the stalls are piled high with vintage fur coats and handbags.  Others with sets and sets and sets of beautiful china.  If I thought I could have managed to get them home, and found a place to put them, I would have gladly brought these home!

After winding through the different little streets full of stalls, I discovered the reason so many people come from all over the world: the antiques.  If you've been to the flea market at Eastern Market and seen the furniture dealers, you would be as shocked as I was to discover booths made up to look like elegant apartments, selling beautiful pieces worth thousands and thousands of euros.

I did not make it half way through the markets before they started to get overcrowded, but I truly enjoyed my morning wandering about and, admittedly gawking, at some of the goods for sale, including an entire booth of pristine, antique monogrammed Louis Vuitton steamer trunks, where I was shooed away for trying to take a picture and immediately felt like a small child about to be sent to the kitchen by some distant relative for attempting to touch the silver tea set...