Week 20: Sunday, May 16th, 2010

I love Ottawa. The city is the perfect mix of big city activity, and small city accessibility for me, which keeps things interesting and easy to get to. Throughout the year many different events are organized by the NCC, including Winterlude, Bluesfest, the Ottawa Jazz Festival and the Tulip Festival. Sure, Montreal has similar events, as does Toronto. But I'm in Ottawa, so I will say how awesome these events are here.


I just hit up the Tulip Festival, and took a lot of pictures there (full album available here). First, a bit of history for those wondering why Ottawa has a Tulip Festival.

Between 1942 and 1945, Canadians sheltered Princess Juliana and her daughters during the Nazi occupation. During that time, Princess Juliana (later Queen Juliana) gave birth to Princess Margriet at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. In order for Princess Margriet to be a Dutch national, they temporarily declared the maternity ward "international territory" so she could take on her mothers Dutch nationality. The Dutch continue to send over tulips every year (about 20 thousand annually), and the festival has grown to over 3 million tulips planted all over the Ottawa-Gatineau area, with the remainder being bought from Canadian and Dutch distributors.

It's a great event, and is on for another week. I highly recommend checking it out if you're in the Ottawa area. Again, the full album is available here.

From Project 52

Technical info: Canon XSi, 18-55mm kit lens @ 18mm, f/8.0, 1/200s, ISO 200. No post processing.