Fact file: This year’s Grande Braderie de Lille takes place on Saturday September 5 and Sunday 6 but would-be bargain hunters are advised to arrive on Friday.

Several coach companies organise tours, prices at Gold Crest Holidays (www.gold-crest.com) start at £199 for a three day trip including two nights accommodation and transfers. If you want to organise a trip yourself Lille is an hour and a half drive from the Eurotunnel’s Calais terminal (www.eurotunnel.com).

antiquities, a medieval and renaissance collection, 17th and 18th-century ceramics and 19th-century French sculptures.

Along with historical milestones in French art, the painting collection offers masterpieces from the Flemish school, Spain and Italy. Monet, Sisley, Seurat, Rubens,Van Dyck, Jordaens, Goya, Greco and Ribera are just a few among the great artists whose work you’ll see here.Also on show are sculptures by Pajou, David d’Angers, Carpeaux, Camille Claudel, and Rodin.

Across on the opposite side of the Place de la République stands the magnificent Opéra de Lille, a neo-classical opera house built between 1907 and 1913 and completely renovated in 2004 in time for Lille’s year as European Capital of Culture.

BACKSTREET BARGAINS With the opera house behind you, make your way from the city centre, across the Rue Nationale into the old town, where the red brick buildings and narrow cobbled lanes have a distinct Belgian look. Here, the tables, stalls and pavement blankets are full of antiques and general collectables.

It’s an easy – and extremely pleasant – place to get lost, but for flea market aficionados the best is yet to come. Just when you think the maze of narrow streets and bric-a-brac piled stalls will never end, you emerge onto the Quai du Wault, a stretch of water, surrounded by cobbled paths and grassy banks.

On one side the quai is bordered by the Couvent de Menimes, a luxury hotel that began life as a 17th-century convent. Facing it across the water, a pavement café and quintessentially French houses, tall and narrow, are jammed together in a long line, all shapes, sizes and colours. Normally, it’s a tranquil place.Today, it’s flooded with people, sellers and buyers, with stalls on both sides of the water and crowds that regularly bring normal progress to a standstill.

Fighting your way through the crowds which are especially attracted to this area, you come to Boulevard Vauban.At any other time this is a busy main road, but now it’s closed and people wander around the ineffectively changing traffic lights, along the centre of the road, browsing stalls that stretch for more than a mile on either side.

Across the Boulevard Vauban and into the Parc les Poussins, the stalls spread across the grass and along the banks of a picturesque river.There are refreshments, music and impromptu dancing to be had here too, as well as the opportunity to find a few quieter moments along the tree-lined pathways that lead to a small zoo.

NIGHT FALLS As dusk descends you might be forgiven for assuming it’s time for the stall holders to pack up until tomorrow. No way.As darkness falls, generators kick in and many of the stalls light up.Those without lights carry on trading in the darkness, as buyers bring out their torches.Alongside the traditional hand-held types, those mounted on headbands are particularly popular, leaving the buyers’ hands free to rummage in the dark among the items for sale.

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