Vienna Markets, episode 6. In which we flee to the Vienna Flea.

I know it may seem kind of strange (the haters might say sad?) to some travelers, but one of the first things I will investigate about a potential travel destination is the location and timing of flea markets.  We love history.  We love culture.  We attend plays, musicals, opera.  We tour museums, cathedrals, landmarks.  I've attended games at nearly a dozen MLB ball parks.  EVERYTHING.  And, of course, that barbaric EVERYTHING includes flea markets (and thrift stores and yard sales, yada, yada, you know the drill).  I think flea markets and collections are a big part of a culture's identity (just ask any archaeologist digging through ruins trying to get a sense of centuries-old community life).  Fleamarketers are digging through the past, too.

Sometimes Mari and I will plan an entire trip around a flea market, like the 127sale, or sometimes there just happens to be a flea at the right time.  As I was researching Vienna and came across the Flohmarkt at the Naschmarkt (the monstrous local farmers' market) I knew we couldn't miss the regular Saturday flea.

Check out the very detailed market site.

(Warning.  It will make you want to be in Vienna on a Saturday.)

naschmarkt-vienna.com/flea-market-naschmarkt.html

There I am braving the elements in my element (and in my winter coat that doesn't see the wintry gray light of day for 50 weeks of the year).  After walking through the lush food stalls of the Naschmarkt we reached our predestined fleamarketing nirvana: hundreds upon hundreds of tented and non-tented booths of all things collectible and waiting-to-be-collected you could possibly imagine.

Personally, I enjoy booths like these with household and decorative fill-a-void-in-your-collection items.  I find it amusing, especially, when I see things that I already have in my own home or that I remember from my childhood home.  Fleamarketing is most often a trip down memory lane and not just about looking for a bargain. You don't even need to buy anything to enjoy fleamarketing.

You don't need to,

but you know you want to!

The "household" items vary from fleamarket to fleamarket, and, as I've mentioned previously, from city to city, state to state, and especially from country to country. Of course, you will sometimes find items previously collected by traveler-gatherers like us.  I have found an Alaska souvenir in an Austin thrift store, souvenir plates from all over the country at the 127sale in Kentucky, and a handful of fragile yet still remarkably perfect porcelain teacups stamped "Nippon" in a drizzly street market in Vienna, Austria.  Go figure.

Mari put her negotiating and diplomatic skills to the test with the non-English speaking proprietor of this booth at right.  On our mental souvenir/Christmas shopping list was a cool license plate for Mari's dad and we thought an oval European plate would be a nice addition to his collection.  With the assistance of a friendly (flea marketers are ALWAYS friendly people--unless they want what you want, of course) English-speaking local browser, Mari was able to knock the price down on the license plate AND a cool "restricted parking for electric vehicles only" plaque for my own garage wall display.

Yes, there is a small

collection of license plates, too.

It always grieves me that I am never able to take advantage of buying furniture at a flea market. Mari and I have found some incredible pieces and incredible bargains, but have always been incredibly far from home when these incredible discoveries are made.  Incredible.

As you can see, the Flohmarkt was active on that drizzly post-Black-Friday Saturday morning, but the damp weather didn't dampen the enthusiastic spirit of the shoppers and vendors.  Aside from the formerly Christmas-listed souvenir license plate, we also found some cool (confirmed enthusiastically on Christmas morning) soccer (I'm sorry, "football") jerseys for our nephews and a couple of small goodies for ourselves.  I came away with a functionally retro Philippe Starck citrus juicer for which I originally suspected I had overpaid despite bargaining down the price five euros (I was happily relieved to find the item selling for twice what I paid on eBay when I returned home).

Mari found a kindred spirit in a youthful jewelry collector who enjoyed spending her Saturdays divesting herself of past treasures and passing them on to fellow jewelry devotees (like I said, kindred spirit).  A beautiful vintage pin featuring an exquisitely encased edelweiss flower found its way into Mari's bulging fleamarket tote, as did a dozen or so tiny silver crests, charms emblematic of Austrian cities left physically untoured on this visit, but remembered nonetheless.  Hoping to fashion these twice-collected miniatures into a bracelet or necklace some day, Mari was thrilled to find unique and easily packable treasures, colorful (and shiny!) reminders of distances traveled.

The Saturday flea market sets up at one end of the daily farmers' market or Naschmarkt.  The marketplace is a bevy of local bounty.  Were I a Wiener, I would probably frequent the Flohmarkt for fresh produce which was grand and colorful and fragrant with a perfume not to be found in any supermarket.

I love this display of spices, so colorful and standing neatly at attention, awaiting a cook's creative hand.  Alas, a previous TSA incident with an ill-fated squeeze bottle of Reese's peanut butter topping from the Times Square Hershey's store has made me wary of traveling with condiments, especially these lovingly and carefully, but locally wrapped (and hence highly confiscatable) seasonings.

Same goes for the cheese.  Unless you are Lucille Ball and traveling with the brass section of your husband's big band, no big luxurious wheels of cheese, either.

Cheese!

Glorious cheese!

When I look over these photos (there were many more, trust me) my appetite for a return trip and for travel to new and collectibles-packed flea markets (and for that big hunk of Swiss cheese that looks like it wants to fall into my hands up there!) is awakened and my travel guru instincts start hungrily hunting for new market adventures, far and wide.

However, before embarking on a new adventure with you, dear reader, I will pay one last visit to fair Vienna and share some lessons learned (and maybe finally put away that nativity set).