Day 14 No fleas on us.

Having more time in the one place has given us the opportunity to see some things that go beyond the normal tourist route; one such place is the Paris Flea markets. Just out of town on the edge of the metro we arrived on a day when, in theory, it was a bit warmer but in reality, the fog never really lifted and the cold seemed to seep into your bones. The history of these flea markets dates back over two centuries when the rag and bone men scoured the dumps and then set up stalls to sell what they had collected. Today the markets are much more organized. At one end of these markets you can find the finest and most expensive French antiques (including a Louis Vuitton chest worth 12,000 euros) and at the other end you can still sift though piles of junk, find a treasure and make an offer to the stallholder. In between, are shops of collectables, for almost anything you can imagine collecting. Sadly many of the stalls were closed today, but there were still more antique French clocks than Paul Keating would ever know what to do with. Despite spending a couple of hours wandering and rummaging we didn’t find anything we wanted to bring home.

Later in the day we found ourselves back near the Hotel d’Ville checking out the free ice-skating rink in the square outside the hotel. It was a far cry from the ice rink at Macquarie Shopping Centre and it was actually quite a bit smaller.

We wandered down some of Paris’s most famous streets including rue de Montorgueil, which is well known for its fine bakeries, cheese shops and butcheries. We decided however that some of these famous streets are not very different from so many other streets in this great city. The cakes shops, for example, which are found at the end of our street are as good as any we have seen in Paris. Our day ended with a little Quiche Lorraine from our local patisserie which was lighter and fluffier than any we have ever eaten and a Tiramisu that any Italian would be proud to call his own (all found in our local neighbourhood for less than 4 euro in total).