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Canadian Tulip Festival

“Tiptoeing Through the Tulips…”

Gary

by Festival Nomad, Gary McWilliams

The Canadian Tulip Festival has three main event sites.

They are located at Parliament Hill – Capital InfoCentre, Major’s Hill Park and Commissioners Park – Dows Lake. The Tulip Route runs between these 3 sites. The sides of the roads are lined with tulip beds.

In fact, just about everywhere you look tulips are sprouting up in all their magnificent cavalcade of colours.

We had already observed the flowers on Parliament Hill. It was now time to visit Major’s Hill Park. The park is located just behind the Chateau Laurier Hotel.

The entrance to the site is defined by portable Festival archway.

Located within the site were giant Tulip sculptures.

Also located within the site were a number of tents. Unfortunately the event parts of the festival were not set to open until the weekend.

It was disappointing, but we did get the flavour of what would be. Our next stop was the site at Commissioners Park – Dows Lake.

To reach it you travel along the Queen Elizabeth Driveway. The Driveway runs parallel to the Rideau Canal.

This is one of the most beautiful drives in Canada, especially at the festival time.

Although the local residents would like everyone to drive fast (they don’t appreciate the scenery), most tourists like to drive slowly to take it all in. We took it all in!

This site was set up with tents and food vendors much like Major’s Hill Park. Again it was disappointing because all the activities wouldn’t happen until the weekend.

Wish We Were There…

As I mentioned, we were too early to enjoy the full blown experience of the festival.

We will certainly go back at a later time. If you are planning to stay over night, reservations, well in advance, are a must. This is a very popular event.

The Canadian Tulip Festival website (http://www.tulipfestival.ca/) gives a full description of everything that happens, but I wanted to give you my thoughts on what I would have like to have seen.

The flowers are the main draw, but there are a lot of other great attractions. At Commissioners Park – Dows Lake, there was be a “Tulip Legacy Exhibit – Gift of Tulips.