Two days after I left Amsterdam in early 2012, the cold snap hit. It was so cold that the canal froze over and cars on the street were turned into ice sculptures. It was not ideal travelling weather, to say the least.

Unfortuantely, this affected my enjoyment of Amsterdam and Berlin, the two final (and coldest) cities on my first trip around Europe. No matter how many layers I wore, my hands were burning from the cold even as they were stuffed in my pockets, wrapped up in gloves. I don’t have many pictures. I didn’t get to spend much time outside.

This was disappointing, because I like to spend a lot of time strolling around a city to get a feel for it. Rather than shuffling between museums, such as Anne Frank’s House and the Heineken Museum, I would have broken it up with some time outdoors, enjoying the little quirks that makes Amsterdam the city that it is. To be honest, I don’t remember a great deal from Amsterdam.

Recently, my friend Rosie went travelling all over the world with her best friend, Chelsea. Her photos blew me away, particularly her heartbreakingly beautiful photos of Amsterdam in spring. The parks look like classical paintings, not photographs from the 21st century.

She’s inspired me to add Amsterdam back the my Wanderlist and to give the city another chance in fairer weather.

While I’m away cruising through the Pacific Islands this week, I thought I’d share some of her & Chelsea’s gorgeous photos. You can see all of their photos from their travels on their tumblr page, here. Be warned, you’ll be drooling all over your keyboard and pinning for days.