It's been hot, dry weather in Paris for what feels like weeks now. This weekend there were brocantes all over the city. I was in the 3rd arrondissement for lunch and came across a huge one that started at the rue Vieille-du-Temple and wound around the Mairie of the Third, where a lot of children were selling their toys in the courtyard.
It was a vide-grenier as well as a brocante. In France, tag sales or garage sales are generally illegal (and as a result charity sales are really fun), but once a year every town or arrondissement is allowed a vide-grenier, literally empty-attic, where anyone at all from that place can sell their possessions. You can find great bargains at these and I much prefer them to the fancy flea market up at Saint-Ouen, where some objects cost in the hundreds of thousands of euros!
This brocante was an especially pleasant one as it was a brilliant blue Sunday and cafes full of cheerful-looking Parisians and foreign tourists lined the street and the Marché des Enfants Rouges. I have rarely seen as many beautiful girls in one place as at this brocante, which featured an unusual number of clothing and fashion stands. I bought a huge red hat and a vase and a few things I really didn't need....
A jovial man leaving his vide-grenier stall on the rue de Saintonge to get lunch for his family said to his wife, "Do your best to attract the customers! I don't want to go home with this stuff!"
"How should I 'attract customers'?" she said. "What should I do, then?"
"I don't know, take off your clothes, get naked!" he said, then noticed I had heard.
"That wouldn't attract me!" I said, and all three of us laughed.
I was there (and posted/photographed)! Wish I'd known you were too!
Posted by: badaude | 02 June 2011 at 01:58
Oh, too bad!
By the way, I love your blog.
Posted by: Sedulia | 02 June 2011 at 15:29