Travel Journal

A Week of Antiques in Paris: Our Last Tour of 2026

For our final tour of the year, we spent six days in and around Paris with a wonderful group of guests, searching for antiques, meeting some of our favourite dealers and artists, and discovering a few of the places Sharon has known and loved for years.

October 13, 2026

Our final tour of 2026 was a particularly fun one.

For six days, Paris became our base for a week centred around antiques. There was plenty of shopping, and quite a lot came home with us! But the idea behind this tour has always been about more than simply buying beautiful things.

We wanted to introduce our guests to the people and places that Sharon has come to know over many years of living in France: dealers she has bought from for decades, small specialist shops, artists and designers, as well as some of the larger Parisian markets that can be difficult to navigate when you don’t know where to begin.

We were seven guests in total, and we had such a lovely group. By the end of the week, after six very full days together, it really did feel like the perfect tour with which to finish our year.

Starting at the Chatou Antiques Fair

We couldn’t really begin an antique tour anywhere other than Chatou.

We spent our entire first day at the fair with Sharon, and luckily had beautiful weather for a day that involved a lot of walking, looking and negotiating.

Chatou is huge, and part of the pleasure is never quite knowing what you are going to find. We came across paintings, quite a few paintings, actually, tableware, decorative objects and all sorts of smaller pieces along the way.

But what makes a day like this particularly special for us is being able to introduce our guests to dealers Sharon has known for years, in some cases for decades. These are people she has bought from many times herself, and there is a completely different experience when you can stop, talk, ask questions and hear a little more about the pieces you are considering.

There were plenty of purchases by the end of the day, which is always a good sign!

That evening, we all sat down for our first dinner together at one of our favourite addresses in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. After a full day at Chatou, it was a chance for everyone to properly get to know one another and celebrate the beginning of our week.

A Different Kind of Antique Market

The following morning we headed to the Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves.

Vanves is very different from Chatou. It is smaller, outdoors and has its own rhythm, with dealers lining the streets and an enormous mixture of things to look through. Once again, there were some very good finds.

For lunch, we went to La Petite Chaise, one of the oldest restaurants in Paris, before changing direction completely for the afternoon.

We joined the team at L’Arrosoir, one of Paris’s historic florists, for a floral workshop. We spent the afternoon surrounded by flowers, learning how to put together our own arrangements and each creating something to take away.

After a morning of antique hunting, it was lovely to spend a few hours actually making something ourselves.

A Sunday at Saint-Ouen

Our third day was devoted entirely to Saint-Ouen.

Anyone who has visited the Paris flea markets knows just how enormous they are. There are different markets, passages and hundreds of dealers, and it is very easy to spend a day wandering without really knowing where to look.

This is where having Sharon with us makes such a difference.

She guided us through the different parts of Saint-Ouen and introduced the group to some of the specialists she particularly likes. We met dealers specialising in tableware, others in vintage fashion and textiles, tapestries, furniture and decorative objects.

Rather than trying to see everything, we could spend time with the people Sharon knows and concentrate on the places she thought our guests would enjoy most.

There was, unsurprisingly, more shopping.

Making Our Own Antiques

By Monday morning, it was time to try our hand at something creative.

We met artist Arnold d’Alger at the Chez SOLEIL studio for an introduction to painting on antique plates.

Each guest was able to choose and decorate an antique plate under Arnold’s guidance. It was a very relaxed morning, and we loved that everyone left with something completely individual that they had made themselves.

That afternoon, we continued with tableware, but from a collector’s point of view, with a private appointment at the Blanche Patine showroom.

Blanche Patine specialises in vintage French tableware, including beautiful Terre de Fer, and it was a chance to meet the people behind the collection, learn more about what they source and, naturally, do a little more shopping.

This combination of meeting people who collect old pieces and artists finding new ways to work with them is something we particularly enjoyed about this tour.

Rungis and Some of Sharon’s Favourite Paris Addresses

On our fifth morning, we left central Paris for Rungis, where we spent the morning with Florence in her incredible antique warehouse.

There is a lot to look through, which is exactly what we wanted. We spent several hours exploring, pulling things out, comparing pieces and finding yet more treasures to add to the week’s purchases.

In the afternoon, we returned to Saint-Germain and spent the rest of the day visiting some of Sharon’s favourite addresses in the neighbourhood.

One of the things we wanted to show during this tour was just how varied antique shopping in Paris can be. Over the course of a few days, we’d gone from major fairs and enormous flea markets to warehouses, specialist dealers, small showrooms and individual shops.

One Last Day at Fontainebleau

For our final day, we left Paris behind and drove to Château de Fontainebleau.

We had arranged a private guided visit that gave our group access to parts of the château that aren’t normally open to the general public. After five days focused largely on finding and buying beautiful old things, it was fascinating to see furniture, decorative arts and interiors in their historical setting.

We finished with one last lunch together in Fontainebleau before heading back to Paris.

And just like that, our final tour of 2026 was over.

Six Days, and Quite a Few Finds

Looking back at the week, we fitted an extraordinary amount into six days.

We searched through markets and warehouses, met antique dealers and collectors, discovered artists and designers, painted our own plates, arranged flowers, visited private showrooms, ate together around some very good tables and finished inside one of France’s great historic châteaux.

There were paintings, plates, textiles, decorative objects and plenty of other finds heading home with our guests. But what we loved most was being able to introduce the group to people we genuinely know and places we love.

It was a very happy six days, with a wonderful group of women, and a lovely way to bring our 2026 season to a close.