Les Puces

After an early start, we realized that 1)we were almost out of diesel and 2)It was Sunday, which meant that most of the gas stations were closed and 3)It was election day, so even fewer people would be out and about. Happily, we found an open service station after driving to two "24 hour" stations which did not accept VISA. Along the way, we saw a camel!


In researching the trip, we saw that one of the biggest antique fairs in France happens at a place in Lyon (Villeurbanne, actually)every Sunday, so naturally we had to go check it out. Unfortunately, the trip down to Lyon took a little longer than expected, and as usual driving in Lyon is a total nightmare, so we ended up arriving pretty much just as things were getting packed up.

The first thing that you are greeted with upon entering the area is a huge asphalt lot, sectioned off into little encampments of people selling mostly junk.

However, on one side of the lot there is an enclosed building

which is also sectioned off into small stores separated by walls made of wooden slats. Inside, there were several places with really nice things. We saw a beautiful farm table for WAY too much money (2800 euro)

and some other nice things




Kenji bought a Chinese jar, of all things. Here he is on his way back from his purchase:

We still hadn't had lunch by this point, so we made the mistake of eating lunch at the cafe in the main building. The saucisse frites plates I ordered had bright red sausages!

We headed back to the hotel and rested for a while, since we were still a little jet lagged from the flight. Gail had found a flyer which advertised an "Antiques City" north of where we were, so after a little more resting we took the tram to the Cite des Antiquaires. The Cite is an entire building full of shops holding very high end antiques, with the added advantage of being able to ship internationally. Its in an ugly, hoodlum infested part of Lyon but well worth the visit.

There were two farm tables that we were particularly interested in:



at 1500 and 1800 euro, but the shipping charges would double this price, so we gave up on the idea.

We were originally going to walk back to the hotel but decided to tram it after seeing the packs of criminals. On the train, Chloe and I overheard an amusing conversation between a girl and her boyfriend in which she demanded to know why he niqued cette meuf while he was in angleterre. I'll leave it to you to figure out what that means.


After returning to the hotel, we headed out to the quai to look for food

but Chloe and I quickly ran out of energy, and settled for bread, epoisses and watching the presidential election coverage on TV. Segolene Royal and Sarkozy were the candidates selected by La France for the final election in two weeks. Amazingly, voter turnout was 84.6 %. Compare that with the past US voter turnouts for federal elections:

2004 55.3 %
2002 37.0 %
2000 51.3 %
1998 36.4 %