Last Sunday I got up very early to go and visit Columbia Road’s Flower Market. For those of you that have never heard of it, Columbia Road is situated in East London, on edge of the city with Shoreditch to the west and Brick Lane and Spitalfields nearby. It is one of those places that have a mixture of visitors, on one hand you have the locals, the Londoners and the Eastenders and on the other you have the tourists, ready to capture the moment with their cameras.
Before I had children we visited Columbia Road often, we used to go late, stroll around looking at the shops, have a coffee and buy flowers. Unfortunately I haven’t visited it much the past few years as I think it’s really not a place to take children. The market gets extremely busy, in fact too busy and I can’t imagine anything worse than having to chase after my children or trying to walk around with a pushchair among the crowds.
Columbia Road is only open on Sundays from 8am til about 3pm. On Sunday we decided to get there super early to avoid the crowds, we got there before 9am and it was already heaving, I guess it was a nice sunny morning so it was the perfect day to visit. We did stroll around looking at all the flowers and plants and I had the chance to snap away some pictures although it wasn’t easy as there was so many people around.
Something else appealing about Columbia Road is all the nice independent shops in the street, anything from vintage clothes, second hand furniture, art galleries and a couple of nice coffee shops, so once we finished looking around the flower stalls we stopped for a coffee.
I wanted to get some fresh flowers and the choice was too big so I ended up getting some pink peonies and also a couple of little plants. I am thinking of getting a small terrarium, so the little plants will be perfect to be displayed on it.
What I love about Columbia Road is that even if you are not a plant expert, like me, you can still enjoy looking around. I love how colourful some of the stalls are and how you can find all sorts of plants and flowers. I also love that it’s a proper East End market.
I really recommend visiting the flower market if you are in the area or if you are a tourist visiting London.
Have you been to the flower market before? What did you think of it?
