I should have the bumper sticker that says, “I brake for flea markets”. Love them, especially in France when my mind wonders about the centuries old objects and their pasts. Foire de Chatou happens only twice a year. It started as a broquante (maybe junk, maybe antiques…it is for you to figure out) and ham market. Yes, as in pig. It has been happening since the middle-ages. It has been held at Chatou since the 1970’s.
To get there we took the RER A train to Rueil-Malmaison. From the train station there was a cute little Choo-Choo type train that took us (free) to the market. The cost to get in was 6 Euro each (which they tried to cheat David in change and he went back and challenged the guy and got his money! Wasn’t easy as the guy pretended he knew no English and that he didn’t understand our French).
We ate a fantastic ham sandwich which almost cost us 50 Euro because we heard “cinquante” and just nearly threw money at the poor woman who finally opened David’s fist and took 50 cents out of his palm (plus, 18 Euro).
We bought some WW1 era postcards from a sweet French couple who had once made a trip to the States along Route 66.
Easy day trip with plenty of time to recover with a little shopping. David bought new black shoes but…hmmm.. failed to buy new black socks…that’s a super good look.
Then there was the requisite bottle of wine on the top of Galleries Lafayette. It is fun to people watch on this roof. There were a number of Japanese photographers (redundant?) snapping photos. Several took pictures of a little four year old girl who looked like the poster child for French chic. I failed to get a pic of her as I was already harboring resentment that she spoke better French than I.
A Pierman Sister 