Itching to buy at Paris flea market

FORGET the boulevards of boutiques and wallet-battering high fashion: the best fashion bargains of Paris are to be found in its second-hand markets.

Capital plan ... when your brain gets tired of museums, try looking at objets d'art that you can afford at one of Paris' many flea markets/Lonely Planet Images

FOREIGN cities can be confusing at the best of times but, when you're lost, caught in a crowd and can't speak the language, it starts to get on top of you.

Even more so when you can't find the right pair of shoes.

This is shopping in Paris. Forget the boulevards of boutiques and wallet-battering high fashion: the best fashion and bargains are to be found on the racks of the past.

There are flea markets in every pocket of the French capital, and you can get anything you want, from authentic Euro antiques to fake watches, classical furniture and the latest sneakers.

When your brain gets tired of museums and art, try looking at objets d'art that you can actually afford.

The three main Paris markets are the Marche aux Puces de Montreuil in the 20th district, or arrondissement, to the east; the Marche aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves in Montparnasse to the south; and the massive Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, just outside Montmartre to the north.

They vary in size and there are smaller markets to be explored, but they are as much an essential part of a Paris trip as the Louvre. And once you've mastered the Metro, you can see the best of them in one day of all-out shopping.

We start our bargain hunt at the Montreuil flea market, with the aim of finding something funky to wear on our nights out in Paris.

Established in the 19th century, Montreuil is one of the older flea markets, and it still has the air of a traditional market place. There are about 500 stalls and it's known as the best place to pick up some distinctly Parisian previously loved clothing.

Now, I'm not usually a market shopper; I don't have the patience required to rummage through endless tat and, like most blokes, I'm no good at window-shopping.

I need to know what I want, where it is, buy it, bought it, done. And I'm certainly not one to umm and ahh over a pair of shoes, but there's something about Paris. Stuff you wouldn't normally look twice at becomes more enticing.

Picking your way through vintage clothes, garbled French, Gallic hip-hop and exotic food, it's hard not to get drawn in. I find shoes I quite like, pairs that are almost what I want but nothing quite hits the spot. So I settle for a retro striped shirt that I hope makes me look slightly more academic and European. I can see the wife isn't convinced, however.

But she's had her fun, roaming through the furniture stalls, pointing out all manner of aged crockery, faded but fantastic jewellery and rumpled yet grand furniture. Not for the first time, I find myself silently blessing airline luggage allowances.

We grab a some pain au chocolat and hop on the Metro to Porte de Vanves, the smallest but least intimidating market. It has the same range of once-fashionable and never-will-be-fashionable clothing, but it's a little easier on the senses.

Porte de Vanves is supposedly for a more knowing market shopper; it has fewer stalls but amazing bric-a-brac, with medals, books, houseware and artwork.

At one stall we flick through coppered daguerreotypes and black-and-white photos of lost family holidays and postcards with messages to be deciphered.

There's no denying the markets are intimidating at first (we keep our belongings in close contact at all times) but after your first purchase, followed by a pastry and coffee, things seem to get a lot easier. More so, after a plate of meat and cheese and a cold beer. At least you'll be prepared for the markets of Saint-Ouen.

Originally the site of rag-and-bone men – otherwise known as "pecheurs de lune" (moon fishermen), due to their habits of stealing other people's rubbish by night and then selling it on their stalls – who lived outside the city's borders, Saint-Ouen has a long history of market trading.

In the late 19th century, these traders joined together to form what is now Paris's largest flea market, attracting more than 120,000 shoppers every weekend.

There are a few dodgy characters skulking around, offering knock-off goods under the Paris ring road. When we spurn the advances and D&G wallets of one nervy salesman, he pulls a wad of cash from a nearby bin and takes off into the crowd. D&G just ain't my thing, though.

But there's a buzz about the Saint-Ouen markets, charged by the throng of people, the music and sounds of the street. And there's nothing you can't find here. I bought a belt; the wife got a new pair of shades. I mulled over spanky Adidas trainers, while she picked through North African wooden heads.

We wandered past new electronics and old men selling battered VCRs and cracked crockery (remnants of those old pecheurs de lune, no doubt) and through the antiques mall, peering in windows and workshops at chaise longues and classical artwork. A hairy, sweating local with a giant gut struggled with a wardrobe while a tiny dog yipped at my heels.

Finally, at the end of the market, I found a shoe shop. The first pair I pick up – size 8, jet-black European winklepickers – fitted perfectly.

While one of the cute and helpful girls at the back teaches the wife a few choice local phrases, another points out a piano-print tie. I go instead for the thin red leather number, and €60 ($100) later, walk out a happy man.

It wasn't exactly cheap for second-hand but the experience was well worth the money.

The Sunday Telegraph