There’s another part of the Saturday market, on the Boulevard Barbès, along the former rampart of la Bastide, a couple more blocks down from les Halles. Here, aside from spices, you’ll find just about anything that would be in the non-food aisles of Wal-Mart.
It’s called the marché aux fripes, which means the used-clothes market, but it’s so much more than just second-hand clothes.
Socks, underwear (my brothers loved the euro briefs I got them a few years ago as a joke), shoes, adult clothes, kids’ clothes, hats, sunglasses, jewelry, watches, bags, phone cases, toys, every manner of hair accessories, makeup, nail polish, housewares from pots and pans to mops and pails, hardware from small tools to screws and nails, carpets, mattresses, pillows, sheets and blankets, curtains, tablecloths……you name it. I didn’t see a kitchen sink, but I did see a faucet.
A lot of the bargains require a hunt, with the goods lumped in big piles on tables. But that’s the thrill, right?
Taste of France 
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