It's time for a "pretty pictures" post from my travelogue. I went back to Rome again this year, and mid-September is the perfect time to visit — the weather is heaven, the kids are in school and Europeans are back to work after their own August vacations. Let's take a look:

I can't believe I'm going to write this, but Rome is slowly eclipsing Paris as my favorite city for fun, inspiration, history and food. My favorite hotel (the Locarno, off the Piazza del Popolo) has free usage of bicycles, and for days I'll fly around the Tiber and the old Centro like a bird. I can't imagine getting around any other way. There's nothing like 3000 years of living history to get one out of one's head; and besides the familiar sites and monuments, this time I also visited the Gallery Doria Pamphilj, which was a delight.

There's something about the quality of light here that any artist would find irresistible, it's like pink gold. I like the texture of these old buildings so much, I wish I could reproduce them in interiors. And as always, I'm constantly searching for the perfect red ochre, which I'm trying to reproduce here by pushing one color into another: Potter's Pink and Perylene Violet, Purple Brown into Flesh Ochre, Yellow Ochre and Venetian Red.

MORE COLOR THERAPY ON APARTMENT THERAPY
• A Roman Palette
• Great Rooms: Livia's Dining Room in Rome
• A Palette from Pompeii

Images: Mark Chamberlain