Amsterdam's maze of winding back-streets and broad serene canals is a joy to get lost in. Being the place that it is, around every corner one is met with a surprise: the red light district, say. Or the marjuana museum, a gay sex shop, the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank house, one of the many delicious pancake houses...

On our second day in Amsterdam we stumbled upon the above sight, quite by accident. It took me a while to click that this must be the Amsterdam flower market - why else would there be twenty green-houses stacked along the side of a canal?

As we walked closer, a faint perfume of flowers drifted into my nose and lingered there.

Coming upon the market by surprise made it all the more enjoyable. There was a phenomenal amount of weird and wonderful flowers, bulbs, seeds, ornaments, textures, colours and compositions! I have never seen so many seed packets in one place, and never thought a bunch of packets could be so aesthetic. I am not usually a flower-enthusiast but it was hard not to appreciate, and frankly be wowed by some of the natural beauties on display.

Surprisingly, we hardly saw any tulips at all. In fact, I think the only ones we did see were on seed packets! Maybe they were out of season...but we did see this wonderful billboard as we exited the market - almost as good as tulips in the flesh :)