Blooming marvellous: The village covered in painted flowers

Had the Flower-Power generation still been around today, this little village in southeast Poland would have been its capital.

One of the smallest villages in Poland, Zalipie is also the most instagramable, drawing in Japanese tourists as well as the international media to gawk at the flowers that have been painted on literally everything.

Houses, schools, bridges, churches and even dog kennels have been adorned with them in a tradition that goes back over a century.

To deal with the soot that was accumulating on the walls of the houses because of the lack of chimneys, the local women began whitewashing the walls and then, to add some colour, began painting flowers on them.

And so it continues even today. But rather than build new houses to refresh their ‘canvas’, the 1,000-odd locals simply whitewash the walls again and then paint new floral designs on them.