Adieu tristesse, bonjour tristesse...

Many thanks to all of our readers who commented or emailed suggestions for my continental European shopping trip! Unfortunately in amongst all the walking and eating (oh my, the eating... if anybody can tell me where I can get pickled garlic cloves in the UK, I will be forever grateful), I didn't do an awful lot of shopping. But I did pick up a few vintage and flea market finds, which I shall share with you now, just for funsies.

Mi amor & sic amor
10 & 20 rue du Pont Louis-Philippe
www.mi-amor.com

Cute 'n' kitsch jewellery and accessories -- like a half-burned cigarette pin, with tiny red paste jewels at the 'lit' tip, for €10. Also, the cutest and most expensive postcards in the world. Sure, you can write home to everyone you know on ugtastic 6-for-a-Euro cards, but if you like things pretty, drop a whole Euro (each!) on the carte postale from this delightful shop. (Also in the vicinity: the most wonderful music, stationery and specialist boutiques you could hope for.)

Ladurée
Champs Elysées & other addresses
www.laduree.fr

OMG. OMG. Even if I say 'fairytale' and 'chocolate box' and 'cherubs on the ceiling', I can't convey how fabulous this tea room/Purveyor of Heavenly Macaroons is. Quite simply the best macaroons in the world -- in flavours such as chocolate, rose petal, pistachio, raspberry, cherry, vanilla, Champagne, and Indian rose. Thank heavens there is a branch in London.

Free P Star
8 Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie

I found an amazing leather satchel here for €5, as well as a sparkly gold jumper (€3), and a fabulous and very on-trend red ruffled dress (€10), which I plan to wear with slouchy knee-high tan leather boots for a '70s feel. All are pictured below. This boutique is awesomely rummage-y, and fantasticly cheap: so refreshing after London's vintage shops, which, thanks to Kate Moss, all charge outrageous prices. Also, the best falafel in the world are sold nearby...fact. There are a bunch of other great vintage shops nearby, and at one of these I found the other leather satchel I bought, for €20 (I have a leather satchel weakness...), but foolishly didn't take down the name.

Colette
213 rue Saint-Honoré
www.colette.fr

I didn't buy much here, mostly because I'm on a writer's income (and not the JK Rowling sort), but I did pick up a totally cute Liberty-print stuffed rabbit toy/objét-type-thing, since it was nearly Easter. Check him out, below -- €10 totally well spent! I also got a badge reading, ma vie est tout à fait fascinante. I wish I'd picked up the book as well (which is available at Amazon France -- or Amazonique, as I like to (wrongly) call it), but I'd just dropped €30 on Time For Action (There's No Option) About Feminism at the delightful Palais de Tokyo, I couldn't really justify it.

(Ooh, also at the Palais de Tokyo, I got another badge, this one featuring a little pink foot, and the text 'Cinderalla's quest'. I'm starting to add up the hows, whys and wherefores of how I came home broke...)

Finally, at various tackorama tourist souvenir shops and flea markets, I picked up an adorable and kitsch Eiffel Tower bracelet, made out of gold-painted cheap metal sure to turn my wrist green, and a selection of silver rings (in Amsterdam), all pictured below.


Clockwise from left: red ruffled dress, €10 at Free P Star, and detail; gold spangly jumper, €3 at Free P Star; leather satchel, €20 from vintage shop, um, nearby Free P Star (I'm so unhelpful), and detail; floral lapin, €10 from Colette; and totally different brown leather satchel, €5 from Free P Star.


Clockwise from top left: Silver rings, in amethyst, jade, coral and tiger eye, €2 each from an Amsterdam market; Eiffel Tower bracelet, €6 from the tourist shop opposite Fontaine St Michel in Paris.

That's it, kids. Thanks for all your help and suggestions, I'm only sorry I was unable to make good on them all, being somewhat distracted by Danish hair models and delicious macaroons. Oh! and in Copenhagen, I picked up a red-on-white fitted men's tee from the lovely Oscar Bar Cafe, a friendly and fab gay bar staffed exclusively by adorable Thierry Henry lookalikes.

Ah, shopping. How you make my life sparkle. Verily, I feel like Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, without the midgety and creepy husband.