The Tulip Paparazzi

Picking up where we left off in yesterday's post, the path led past more tulip colours.

Commissioners Park comes to an end here, where Dow's Lake narrows back into the Canal as it goes downtown. The beds here before these houses are ideal for photo ops, with space between the beds for posing. Many people indulge in just that, particularly during the weekends. I look for the occasional shot I refer to as tulip paparazzi at such sites.

We started heading back to take in the tulip beds north of where we had parked. We stopped at these beds west of the main pathway, where the tulips tend to bloom early.

I mentioned in an earlier post about the red emperors. At the time of an earlier visit I'd made, they were at their prime, but a few days later, the red emperors in these beds were past that stage, many of them dropping their petals, as you see here.

The other tulips in these beds were still in fine shape. We'll pick up here tomorrow.

Amazing Grace

Today I am returning for some posts to Commissioners Park at Dow's Lake. This visit was made last week Tuesday morning, on a grey misty day that got better as the day went along, so the next few posts will reflect how the tulips were at that point. I came down with Tom and his wife to the park, where we first found a parking spot and then moved south through the park, photographing tulips.

My title refers to this particular kind of tulip, marked here. Amazing Grace tulips are the pink ones in this bed, mixed in with others.

While many of the tulip beds also feature accompanying flowers- muscari or narcissus, for instance- I noticed these white trilliums growing on the slope behind one flower bed, and they were accessible. I made my way closer for a shot. White trilliums are our provincial flower, and bloom relatively briefly in the spring.

We continued along. The Canada 150 tulip, developed for our anniversary year, was in abundance. Its characteristic white with red accents stands out beautifully.

The pathway carried on, past more colourful tulip beds.

Park Views

I started yesterday's shots with a view taken on Monday afternoon a week ago at the War Memorial. I took my company over into Major's Hill Park, where there are several tulip beds. Some of that lines up behind the statue of Colonel John By, such as the case here. 

The Chateau Laurier lingers in the background here.

Moving on, the path takes us to other tulip beds at the north end of the park, with the National Gallery of Canada and Notre Dame Basilica as backdrops.

A shift in perspective looks west. The blocks of Parliament can be glimpsed at the top of the rise in these shots.

This view from the other bed here features the American embassy in the background.

One more shot from here. I'll have another look in this park before I'm done with the Tulip Festival series, as I returned again this past weekend.

We headed back, stopping by this art installation. I have never photographed it before (at least up close), but have passed by it many times. Twist 1.5 is a large wooden spiral created in 1978 by Alex Wyse and Ken Guild, recreating the spiral motif that one often finds in nature. It is built out of British Columbia fir.

Memorial

Today's post features the tulips around the National War Memorial. This first shot, taken shortly before five in the afternoon, has visitors on site and the sentries at their posts near the end of their day. Sentries are relieved every hour, and at five PM, the guard is dismissed for the day. Military police or city police are on site during the guard hours, and the van had come into place to remove some of the items around the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for the night, such as the rope barriers establishing a perimeter for the sentries. I took this shot a week ago on Monday when Tom and Janette were in town. This area, centred on the Memorial and ringed by Parliament Hill, the Chateau Laurier, the National Arts Centre, and the Chambers, is referred to as Confederation Square, and a few months back a writer in one of our papers suggested that it is the Canadian equivalent of Trafalgar Square. I think they were right.

A couple of evenings later, I came back. The National Arts Centre stands across from the War Memorial, and its glass tower was lit up for the evening. Tulips in planters were positioned on the traffic island dividing Elgin Street here.

Here are some of the planters on the terrace leading up to the War Memorial, also taken that evening.

Another angle looks back at the NAC.

And this angle looks from the rear of the War Memorial. Aside from tulips in those planters, the tulips line the flowerbeds around the Memorial terrace, such as you see here. 

I came back again a day or two later around mid-day when the sentries were on duty 

Locales

Today I wanted to show tulips in other settings. I'm starting off with a morning shot taken in Dundonald Park, where tulips lurk among the flower beds.

They can also be found in the gardens of homes nearby, such as these two.

As I noted a couple of days ago, not all gardeners are human. These tulips are in the treeline in Central Park in the Glebe, no doubt transplanted by a squirrel from a nearby garden.

Painted tulip sculptures are found at various sites throughout the city during the festival. These are in the Glebe. The first one has St. Giles Presbyterian Church as a backdrop.

There were some white ones set up in the Glebe before the festival started, waiting for artists to start painting new designs on them. This one was being painted when I first stopped by and chatted briefly with the artist. Passing by the next day, it was done, and quite bright and colourful.

This one is outside a clothing shop some blocks down the street.

And here we have one of the tulip beds outside the Sunnyside branch of the Ottawa Public Library.

These are taken on an afternoon drive taken during the festival, and we're going to look at other spots from that time in posts after I'm done with the tulips. I had visitors- Tom and his wife- here last week to see the tulips, and we went up into the Gatineau Hills. Les Collines-des-l'Outaouais (literally translated as the Hills of the Outaouais, and that term is a French version for the name of the Ottawa River and this particular area of Quebec as a whole) is a regional municipality north of the city of Gatineau on the Quebec side of the river, home to most of Gatineau Park. It is a largely rural area, with its seat in the village of Chelsea. It was here in Chelsea that we stopped at a church, St. Stephens, to photograph the church and its accompanying cemetery. There were tulips here. I'll show you St. Stephens after I'm done with this series.

The village of Wakefield also lies in this regional municipality, north along the Gatineau River from Chelsea. This lone tulip was found near the entrance of a bridge, which I shall also show down the line.