One of our favorite things to shop for when we travel has always been and will always be jewelry. It's the best souvenir, because you'll have it forever and when you get compliments on a piece, you can say, "This old thing? I got it in Santorini, Santa Fe, Paris..."

So naturally it follows that one of our most treasured memories is touring and shopping at the H. Stern headquarters in Brazil several years back. In Brazil, you literally can't turn the corner without tripping over an H. Stern outpost, but the workshop in Rio de Janeiro is something else entirely. You learn about the history of the brand, the natural gem stones of Brazil and watch the jewelry makers in action. Then, you're set lose to sip cocktails and shop. Our little square necklace from the Rainbow collection bought at the H. Stern store in Rio is one of our prized possessions.

Fast forward a few years to last week. We were invited to a blogger breakfast at the H. Stern store. Despite our appreciation of H. Stern, we had never set foot in the New York City store before. It's near Rockefeller Center, so we had surrendered the store to tourists. That was a mistake.

We had forgotten the H. Stern heritage of using nature, movement and dance in the jewelry collections--and all at good value. No wonder that H. Stern is a celebrity favorite, including Rihanna who is wearing H. Stern rings, above. Similar to the folks working at the David Yurman Townhouse, everyone who works there was happy to help and let us try on all the pieces we wanted.

Diane Von Furstenberg fans that we are, we gravitated towards the DVF H. Stern collection. The Sultra Sport Watch is sexy, elegant and functional:

and we also love the Rock Crystal Bracelet from the DVF collection.

The next time you're in NYC shopping at Sak's or the original NYC H+M, be sure to stop by!

FTC Disclosure: I attended a press-only breakfast at the Townhouse, where I was gifted with a piece of H. Stern jewelry.