And another lovely store we visited, just about two blocks from our apartment in the Marais, is Le Petit Atelier de Paris. It sells porcelain homewares and other beautiful items made on site (in the cave below the store). Its designer-owners are extremely nice and they packaged all our many purchases beautifully. And we even made friends with their chien, who loved us for the fresh baguette we were carrying.

I originally saw the apartment on Designtripper, and since then it’s been featured almost everywhere — including Elle Decor! And it’s no wonder: everything about the apartment, from structure to the smallest detail, is perfection. It was such an inspiring place to stay while visiting the Paris flea markets. And the apartment is in a fabulous location in the Marais, just blocks from the Centre Pompidou (which you can see from the apartment windows!), and in the midst of plenty of shopping and restaurants. And there are so many boucheries, boulangeries, and patisseries nearby that we frequently ate meals at home!

Here is the Hotel d’Hallwyl from the street:

Once you get through those imposing doors, there’s a lovely private courtyard.

And then once inside the building, you’re faced with this gorgeous staircase!

And finally, the apartment!

And did I mention those rooftop views???

This apartment was just the perfect place to stay in Paris. If you’re interested in booking it for your visit, you can find more information here.

Earlier this year I happened across two absolutely amazing travel videos made by the very talented Mike Matas–one from his trip to Morocco & Spain and the other from a trip through India. These videos absolutely blew me away. Waves of images and sounds washed and broke over me. It was like he was downloading his experiences directly into my brain, and I was experiencing them as if they were my own memories. In short, I was moved, and I immediately decided that I would try to document our trip to France in the same beautiful way. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I hope Mike agrees.

When I watch this video, I feel like I’m living our amazing trip all over again. I hope you can sense some of the magic too.

And now, without further ado, please enjoy 2,388 of my vacation photos in just over three minutes! (Aren’t you glad I didn’t invite you over for an old-fashioned show-and-tell slideshow??)

music by Simon Wilkinson

We went to Cape Cod last summer to watch my husband’s cousin, Matt Crouse, pitch in the Cape Cod summer league for the Brewster (“Brew-stah”) Whitecaps. Not only is it a gorgeous setting for summer baseball, it was also the perfect place to hone my Boston accent! Plus, Matt was great. In fact, he got drafted by the Detroit Tigers this year and is currently pitching for the Class A Connecticut Tigers. So I hope he’ll enjoy these photos from last year, even though he’s now on to bigger and better things…