Sigh, the view from our hotel roof last week in Miami. You could just see the sea behind all the palm trees and high rise hotels along the front. I loved looking across to that hotel with its semi-patterned facade.

To be honest, we spent most of the time at the beach, but I can report back that Miami is a party town. You can order a cocktail that’s bigger than two heads and a lot of folk drive SUV’s and sports cars and blast beats at ya on their way past. Speedily. I spent the week with Will Smith in my head. I also came back to London with enough snaps of Art Deco buildings to fill a book. Yellow ones, pink ones, mint green and salmon ones, even derelict ones. Many around the famous Ocean Drive of South Beach, but also stretching along Collins Avenue where all the crazy expensive hotels are – the Delano and The Raleigh and such.

After a while it seems normal to see an ordinary H&M inside a beautiful old theatre (Lincoln Theatre, below) or intricate birds carved into the stonework of the shabbiest blocks of apartments, but if you’re a Londoner, it’s pure brilliant novelty.

We did make it over to the Design District, which was far slicker than I expected. Like a big Bond Street, but with those classic wide American avenues, boxy low buildings and the odd bit of faux-guerrilla street intervention. The Christian Louboutin shop had a pretty amazing living wall.

Back in South Beach, glamorous as it sounds, we had a nice time mooching around this carpark by Herzog and de Meuron.

No really, it was cool, look at that striped concrete wall and neon number.

I haven’t got a single shot of the beach that doesn’t show my whole family running through waves, so you’ll just have to imagine that scene.

If you end up going to Miami yourself, hit me for restaurant suggestions. We ate some beautiful and awful things so I can cover all spectrums. Sometimes the awful is the best isn’t it?

UPDATE: For more Deco and a hot (gloss) pink room from the Bass museum of Art, go see our brand new Miami Pinterest board.