La Grande Rederie, Amiens, France

This past weekend Amiens hosted a huge flea market. It’s held once a year, usually the first Sunday in October. This “vide greniers” – or “empty attic” – brings over 2,000 vendors to Amiens from all around the world and literally takes over the city center.

This wasn’t something I wanted to miss, so I was really excited when some of the girls mentioned they wanted to go. So we made a plan to meet in the early afternoon and spend the day wandering the streets, hunting for treasures. As soon as we started out, I knew it was going to be bigger than any flea market I’d visited. Although, there was one held at Chateau de Chambord a few years ago that was pretty impressive.

More from our time in Amiens: Cathédrale d’Amiens / La Cathédrale en Couleurs / Bienvenue à Amiens / Les Hortillonages

There was miles upon miles of stuff. Some of it was awesome and antique, some of it was more of the garage sale variety.

We were so busy looking around, we barely looked up to see where we were. I wanted to buy everything in sight. If only I wouldn’t have to ship things overseas to get them home.

We stopped for a quick lunch at Cafe Chocolat Club, a cute little cafe that Kayla recommended. In preparation for the day’s festivities, they had a pretty limited menu selection, but I still enjoyed my tartine du boucher – complete with a spicy horseradish sauce.

After lunch we continued our treasure hunt, and I found some awesome vintage French kitchen towels to add to my food prop collection. If it hadn’t been for my pregnancy exhaustion – and a little false labor alarm – I could have roamed the streets for the rest of the afternoon, but I bailed early just to be safe (totally kicking myself now because I’m still pregnant!).

This is definitely not something to miss if you’re in Amiens when it’s happening. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and you never know what you might find.