Ottawa Tulip Festival

Every year Ottawa holds a tulip festival at Commissioner’s Park to celebrate the friendship between the Dutch and Canadians. During World War II, the Canadians sheltered the future queen Juliana and her family while Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany. In 1943, Princess Margariet was born in an Ottawa hospital and is the only royalty born on Canadian soil. After World War II, the Netherlands sent Ottawa 100,000 tulip bulbs to show their gratitude. Even today, every year the Netherlands sends 20,000 bulbs, 10,000 from the royal family and 10,000 from the Dutch bulb growers society. There is now over 3 million bulbs on display during the festival.

Day 1: Tulip Festival 

This year it was from May 12-22. (More info here.) We were lucky and able to find street parking around the Glebe neighborhood on 3rd and Percy where it was 3 hours parking (there were no street signs and we asked a local and they said it there’s no sign then it 3 hrs parking). Many streets around the area was only 1 or 2 hr parking. And the festival didn’t really offer a paid parking lot that was close by…

The festival was really really crowded, and we understand why! It featured many beds of all different types of tulips arranged in various colors and height, and was beautiful, especially when the sun is shining on them. They also had food booths, feature movies, paid guided tours and port a potties set up. (FYI, The beaver tails here were infinitely better than the one we had in Quebec City, and totally more inline with what we remembered from trying them in Banff. The dough was freshly fried, fluffy with a slight crisp and topped with goodies. Go figure that a kiosk at the festival can make better Beaver Tails than a brick and mortar store in Quebec City!) 

“Curly” types of tulips

Typical tulips that I’m accustomed to seeing

So many petals, it almost doesn’t look like a tulip!

Feathery tulips (Miami sunset was the name)

Multicolored tulips

We also went back at night for the backlight display, which is supposed to let you see the tulips through the eyes of a bee, but we couldn’t really make it out. This time we could park closer in the 1 hr parking zones because it’s not enforced after 7PM.

At night, the board walk by the lake lights up. They call it the black light walk. Later at 9:15 there was a little “show” where water shot up off the lake to mimic a ship being torpedoed 

Lighted tulip

Dinner at Datsun: we sat at the bar so we could watch them make all the food. These bao buns were so good! One is a nagano pork belly bun with thin cucumber pickles and scallions in a hoisin sauce. They cut the pork into rectangles and then seared them so there was a nice crunch on the outside, but was melt in your mouth on the inside. The fried chicken bao bun had lettuce, seaweed dust, furikake and ranch dressing. Both were really good. I’m gonna try to make this at home!

This is a Brussels sprout leaves and shrimp salad that was tossed lightly with Vietnamese fish sauce. It was pretty good, although the portions were very small for $17. The salad would littler fit in the size of my one cupped hand…

This is the Nagano pork belly ramen. I was so concerned with soggy noodles, I slurped half of it before taking the picture. But the noodle texture was really good as well as the soy sauce egg and pork belly. The broth wasn’t right though.

Day 2: More Tulips at Major Hill Park and Parliment, War Memorial and Rideau Canal

Today we walked from our hotel to downtown’s attractions. There were people in blue shirts and hat milling around all the monuments, and they said we can ask them questions, etc. They work to educate the public about the history of national Capitol area. That’s really nice! We ate lunch at Lil Z’s By Ward Market, and afterwards had another Beaver Tail. Again, infinitely better than the one at Quebec City! We ended the day with a dinner of salad bowls to off-set all the “naughty” foods we’ve been eating.

War Memorial 

Ceremony near the war memorial 

Rideau Canal locks: the canal is 121 miles going all the way to Kingston in Lake Ontario. Built 1826-1832 under the direction of Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers intended for the safe movement of military equipment in case of a British or U.S. invasion 

Rideau Canal was a major engineering feat, and is now managed by Parks Canada for recreational activities. There is a lot of placards that explain the history throughout the canal.

View of the St Lawrence River 

Tulips at Major Hill Park

On the way to By Ward Market we saw this Ottawa sign

Artists painting wooden tulips