Day 177, 6 December 2014, Paris, France - the hugest day ever... Saint Ouen's Marches aux Puces, after lunch, off to Place de la Concorde for the massive (huge - enormous - extreme) Christmas market that lines both sides of the Champs Elysee. To start the day we headed off on the metro to Saint Ouen in the north of Paris. I had seen this suburb of markets on the BBC show "Put your money where your mouth is" and thought it looked pretty fascinating. And it was. From the antique stalls and shops that would take €1000s off you without blinking, to the top-end flea market stalls... to the bottom end flea market stalls (think if you arrived early enough here you'd see the deliveries being made 'off the back of a truck'. After we finished our stroll up the far end of the last market, just when we thought it was over, we made it to the blanket market under the overpass - literally everything on blankets on the ground and the grittiest part of the neighbourhood. The sublime to the ridiculous. Half way through the outing we stopped for a coffee, crepe and juice near a Brocante playing sixties rock and roll. Kept us going until a quick Asian lunch dish then it was off to Christmas on the Champs Elysee. We made it down one side during daylight - meats, cheeses, seafood, foie-gras - stalls everywhere and that's not counting all the gift stalls. Reached the Arc du Triomphe (or the 'Arc du Traffic' as I've recently christened it). At this point sensibly exhausted types would have taken the metro home and collapsed in a dignified fashion but we are not "half job Hardies" and darkness was descending. There was nothing for it but to walk down the opposite side of the Avenue and then from the roundabout to the Obelisque - back down the Christmas market on the other side of the street. What a stunning day - blue sky and sunshine and a tropical 7 degrees meant thousands of people were all out and about with us. As you all know I'm a fan of twinkly lights and we were both throughly Christmas-ified by the time we squeezed onto a packed train and made our way to the hotel. Seriously packed - one bloke had a panic attack next to us and started fighting to open the doors as the train moved off. Thoroughly justified as it turns out - the wife and kids hadn't actually made it on in the crush - Parisians to the rescue and the doors were held and the family reunited. Our neighbourhood was a ghost-town when we returned which was fabulous. We headed out for dinner at 6.30 pm - starved - but a tad early since almost everywhere opens at 7.30 pm. We had a rolling dinner instead - started in a Sushi joint then moved onto the Italian next door for a pizza. Having been deprived of food not prepared by me for 2 months I was more than satisfied - French, Asian, Japanese, Italian in one day. All the major food groups! It certainly seemed like we'd fitted 2-3 days into one by the time we had an early night and finally collapsed in a thoroughly dignified fashion at about 8.30 pm. Tomorrow? Canal St Martin for street art... Le Marais for a stroll... The booksellers on the Seine for a browse... then the Eiffel Tower, Christmas Markets and Ice-rink by night - just because.