Vintage & Antique Hunters

After meeting in Nîmes, Marseille or Montpellier, we head home. Nothing formal is planned for the first evening: there is time to settle in, exhale and get to know one another before apéro and our first dinner together, cooked by Slava with seasonal produce.

This is where the art de vivre begins. The house is filled with old objects and the stories behind them. Over dinner, we talk about what you love, what you are looking for and what you might like to take home. The next morning, we arrive at the brocante with an idea of what we are searching for, while leaving room for surprise.

In the morning, we go where old things are still bought as part of everyday life, not simply as decoration, and where the whole ritual feels a little like stepping into a French film.

In an ancient Roman town, markets unfold beneath enormous plane trees. Natacha begins by training your eye: what can a hallmark reveal? When does wear add value, and when does it conceal a problem? Which restorations are acceptable? When is a price aimed at the casual buyer?

Before long, you begin to notice these details for yourself. Natacha is there whenever you want a second opinion, an appraisal or help negotiating. The aim is not to buy as much as possible, but to recognise the object you will genuinely want to live with.

After the brocante, we join Slava at the food market. We lunch among the locals, choose ingredients and return home with two kinds of finds: those that will live in the house and those that will become dinner.

If the object allows it, we do a little restoration that evening: cleaning silver or metal, carefully returning its shine and discovering details that were easy to miss at the market.

The next morning is spent at a family wine estate where locals gather at the weekend. Estate wines, food prepared by cooks from neighbouring villages, long tables and a perfectly ordinary Sunday in this part of France.

Then Montpellier. If the desire to keep searching is still there, we continue at the city's brocante. If not, we leave shopping behind and simply spend a few hours exploring.

The tour can be extended on request for any number of days. Fortunately, there is a different brocante somewhere nearby every day.

You return with inspiration, memories and perhaps the beginning of a collection: old silver we polish together and that you can use every day; a small vase that changes the mood of a room; a lamp that brings softer light to your interior; a painting that starts conversations; or one modest object that carries the memory of the journey.

The value of this journey is not measured by how much you buy. Afterwards, a French brocante no longer looks like beautiful chaos. You know what to notice, what to ask and why one old object has genuine character while another merely looks old.

The object you choose acquires something more important than a price tag: a story of its own.

The itinerary can be extended with extra days around your interests: more brocante, interiors, wineries, gastronomy, or simply a few quiet days in the South of France.