What’s a better way to spend a weekend in Paris than shopping? There is no better place to find unique and one of a kind items than at one of the Paris Flea Markets. Here you will find unique items, flexible prices and are guaranteed to come home with some one of a kind items you will treasure for years to come.
There are several flea markets in Paris all with their own style and offerings. The most famous flea market in Paris is the one at Porte de Clignancourt, officially called Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, but known to everyone as Les Puces (The Fleas). It covers seven hectares and is the largest antique market in the world, receiving between 120,000 to 180,000 visitors each weekend and has over 2,500 stalls! How large is seven hectacres? A little over 17 acres or 7 major league baseball fields and that is a lot of space for vendors and items for you to buy!! Many flea market stalls resemble rooms in a hoarder’s house: to find the good stuff, you sometimes have to sift through heaping piles of uninteresting items. Consider it an amusing treasure hunt and a challenge. You just never know what you will find.
Admission to Les Puces is FREE!
How to get to Les Puces – Get off at Metro Porte de Clingancourt (line 4) and follow the signs to the market. The market lies between Paris’ 18th arrondissement (district) and the northern suburb of St Ouen.
The Markets at Les Puces
Rue des Rosiers from the Right Side
Along Rue des Rosiers, you will find several interesting shops, selling Art Deco furniture, mirrors, decorative furniture and even fireplaces. It’s easy to find shops here selling decorative pieces, paintings, garden pieces and worth a stop and the time to check them out.
Keep walking until you find Marché Vernaison, 99 rue des Rosiers, and the smaller Marché Antica will be first on your right. Vernaison is a wonderful, winding market where you can find anything from missing parts from antique commodes to furniture, beads, textiles, paintings, antique toys, and many other things you didn’t think you needed until you saw them here. It feels and is enormous and it’s easy to get lost wandering down the alleyways and in and out of shops. Time will fly by fast so wear good walking shoes. If you’re looking for paintings and smaller objects, this is the place to start your shopping. You will also find country-style furniture here and also beautiful linens as well as paintings and decorative objects.
Marché Antica, 99 rue des Rosiers, has a several dealers worth checking out along with a good Art Deco stand and several stands selling porcelain and paintings plus Chinese furniture.
Marché Biron, 85 rue des Rosiers, is next on your right as you are walking. There are two sides to this market and you will probably find it works better to walk down the left side as you face it, rather than the right. On the left side, you can find hundreds of nice pieces of wood furniture, most in a country style, popular with buyers. They are not always the cheapest stalls, but the selection is vast and you will find pieces here you will want to take home, it’s just a matter of price. The right side of Biron has more gilded Louis XV and Louis XVI, Empire-style furniture, if you are into that style of furniture. If you are looking for those kinds of pieces, you are sure to find what you want here.
Rue des Rosiers from the Left Side:
Starting on the left from the the top of Rue des Rosiers, find Marché Malassis, 142 rue des Rosiers, selling furniture and objects from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as Asian and archeological pieces plus lots of silver. There are beautiful objects here, but you may want to save energy and your money for Serpette and Biron which are further on.
Marché Dauphine, 140 rue des Rosiers, is next on your left and it is the newest market. It is large and because of that, isn’t as easy to classify as some of the other markets. Here, you will find everything from rare antiques, to decorative furniture pieces, to books, prints, funky art and vintage clothing, to rugs, to garden pots. These few shops have some quality antiques and also some nice decorative pieces. 
There is a crèpe stand outside, always good for a mid-morning snack. You will also find a nice café and decent restaurant at the back of Marche Dauphine, away from the crowds. In any restaurant, don’t set your purse down where you can’t see it, but keep it in your lap.
Marché Serpette and Marché Paul Bert:
Serpette: 110 rue des Rosiers
Paul Bert: 96 rue des Rosiers and 18 rue Paul Bert
These two offer an enormous selection of furniture, prints, paintings, mirrors, antique luggage, vintage clothing, hardware, art deco furniture and hardware, kitchen goods, etc etc. You will find mirrors, dressers, armchairs, prints, footstools, tables, soap dishes, antique hooks, etc here. Even Bill Gates has been known to shop here for items for his house in Seattle!
Start in Serpette and keep wandering up and down until you get outside into Paul Bert. Paul Bert has a combination of traditional dealers plus more kitsch ones that sell 50’s and 60’s furniture. There is a large kitchen store in the back allies behind Serpette; prices are not cheap but the selection is wonderful. You can find chaise longue’s and settee’s along the back stalls behind Paul Bert as well as nice prints.
L’Entrepot is next on your left and tends to sell much larger pieces, architectural pieces, staircases, marble table tops and the back stock of some of the merchants you’ve met in the various Marchés. Always worth a visit if you’re furnishing a large home.
Marché Jules Vallée
7-9 rue Jules Vallée is behind Paul Bert and Marché Serpette and sells antiques, small items, records, religious art. There is more bric a brac and thrift shop atmosphere.
How to Get to Les Puces Flea Market
Take the métro to Porte de Clignancourt on Line 4 and follow the crowds towards the large concrete overpass. If you are looking for antiques, don’t waste too much time looking through the clothing, African objects and household goods on streets along the way. The market and neighborhood is very colorful and you will love the diversity of personalities, stall keepers and products for sale! The 18th arrondissement, where the Puces are located, is in a poorer part of Paris and the market gets very crowded. As mentioned above, you want to watch your wallets and you can safely stroll around here during the day.
Rue des Rosiers is the main street which you walk down in order to go into the separate markets. The individual markets tend to run into each other. A good directory of dealers and information is available as an Apple Iphone app about the Paris Flea markets here.
So when is Les Puces open?
Every Saturday from 9a – 6p
Every Sunday from 10a to 6p
Every Monday from de 11a to 5p (please note that many stalls close around lunch time)
If you get there early, plan on having a leisurely Café Crème and watching the antiques world start up for the day. If you’re a serious shopper, watch out as it becomes very crowded after lunch!!
We strongly recommend going to the Puces on Saturday or Sunday because many dealers aren’t open on Monday, or only open by appointment. If you can only shop on Monday, arrive in the morning when you stand a better chance of dealers being open, cleaning up after the weekend.
Note: Be careful to your hide wallets and purses; as in any city, big crowds are a great place for pickpockets to work – and the Flea Market is no exception.
Other Paris Flea Markets worth a visit include:
Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves
Address: Avenue Georges Lafenestre and Avenue Marc Sangnier, 14th arrondissement
Metro: Porte de Vanves (Line 13)
Tel: +33 (0) 6 88 64 82 77
Hours: Open: Every weekend all year long, 7am to 2pm. Entry is free.
Marché du Livre Ancien et d’Occasion (Book Market)
Address: 104, rue Brancion, Parc Georges Brassens (under the pavilion Baltard), 15th arrondissement
Metro: Convention (line 12), Porte de Vanves (Line 13)
Hours: Open: Every weekend, 9am to 6pm. Entry is free.
Marché aux Puces de Montreuil
Address: Avenue de la Porte de Montreuil
Metro: Porte de Montreuil
Hours: Open Saturday to Monday, 7am to 7:30pm. Entry is free.
Flea Market Tips
- Choose a central meeting point and time after you arrive there so that members of your group can wander off in different directions depending on their interests. Then you can join each other and share your discoveries and purchases.
- Go to the Flea Market in the morning as it becomes very crowded in the afternoon. Be prepared to get to the markets near opening time, so that you don’t miss out on items that are quick to sell, such as unique porcelain decorative items, old photographs, and military paraphernalia
- Hide your wallets under your shirt or sweaters around your neck. Make sure to keep your wallet and other valuables out of easy reach, as the crowded conditions at the market are ideal for pickpocketers
- The first thing to do before jumping into the flea market fray is to stop at an ATM/cashpoint. There are no credit or debit card transactions at the stalls, so make sure you have enough cash on you before you begin shopping. Some shops will take credit/debit cards as will some stalls but not all and you don’t want to miss out on an item if you only have a credit card. Also some sellers will give a cash discount as they don’t have to then pay the credit card processing fee.
- Don’t bring your passports to the Flea Market or miscellaneous credit cards that you won’t use: we have never needed our passports to buy there because antiques do not have VAT for the tax refund. Charge antiques on your credit cards, so bring the essential ones.
- Negotiating: If you love to shop for antiques and shop flea markets then remember that everything is negotiable.
- It helps to have someone around, who is great at saying in a loud voice that we don’t need this mirror at all, it’s too expensive, etc. If the dealers think they might lose the sale, it speeds up the negotiation.
- Sometimes pull out your calculator, punch a few buttons, look up and say: ‘It doesn’t work at €600; can you do it for €450? They then think you are also a dealer and must have the lowest possible price.
- You don’t have to complete the sale on the spot; get a mobile phone number and call the dealer the next day to negotiate. If they haven’t had a big weekend (and with the Euro at new highs against the dollar, business is very slow) they are more willing to give a good discount.
- Contact a shipper, such as Hedley’s Humpers beforehand and they can give you tickets to mark antiques and pick them up the next day for shipment home. This also allows you to negotiate the next day via the dealer’s mobile number; you simply call Hedley’s afterwards and arrange for them to pick up the item.