France is the ultimate haven for those passionate about estate sales, antiques, and French brocantes. A French brocante is similar to a giant yard sale—a game of hunting and gathering. Brocante stores are a familiar sight in the south of France. In Uzès, there are weekends devoted to brocantes. Items …

In the last few years, Saturdays would normally involve a trip across to the wonderful brocante market at Villeneuve-Les-Avignon, arriving early and spending the whole morning just fuddling around the stalls, finding new pieces for the house, or simply letting our imaginations run riot with what we may be able …

By Sophie Bellard: Le Passé – Le Présent is a boutique a cave of wonders, a true cavern of Ali Baba in the center of Cotignac. Nadine Dehennin and her husband opened this brocante and decoration shop more than 30 years ago. It is full of beautiful discoveries, one-of-a-kind items that …

Exploring Brocantes As you have probably gathered by now we tend to enjoy spending our time in France cycling, visiting brocante markets, vide greniers and drinking coffee, with the days passing by in a blur and us inevitably falling into bed each evening tired and satisfied after the day’s activities. …

Last weekend we decided to potter off to enjoy a couple of brocante markets and vide grenier events being held in the area. The last time we’d gone to one we’d found a wonderful French Military History chart for our youngest, Tom, who’s passionate about history, so he too thought …

Contributor blog post by Vaucluse Dreamer: The last couple of days have been a bit of a whirl, which culminated on Friday in me driving my eldest across to the beautiful Gorges du Tarn, where he is doing a month’s ‘Work Away’ at a small bike-hire company Mellow Vélos. The …

Contributor blog post by Vaucluse Dreamer: If you’ve been following my blog for a while you’ll know that one of the things I love most about France is the chance to spend the weekends pottering round some of the fabulous local ‘brocante’ markets. In the Summer, the weekends pass by …

Contributor blog post by Vaucluse Dreamer: Not every day starts with blue skies & sunshine in Provence and Saturday was one of those days! When we woke, the rain was drumming on the roof and the whole place just looked soggy, so any thoughts of a bike ride went out of …

Tell me there’s a brocante nearby and I’m there! If I start off another blog post with “one of my favorite things,” please excuse me. It’s just that it’s so hard for me to contain myself when describing some of the fun things to do in France. Like going to …

Contributor blog post by Vaucluse Dreamer: From the middle of the week I could see that today was shaping up to be a busy day. Not that I had a list of things that had to be done, but more because I’d seen signs for 3 local ‘Vide Grenier’ events …