Let’s visit the world’s largest tulip festival!

We know that spring has officially arrived in Ottawa when the Canadian Tulip Festival kicks off at the beginning of May. Over 600,000 people from Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia come to Ottawa to look at the tulips and take in a variety of events that are part of the festival. It’s the world’s largest tulip festival!!

In the fall of 1945, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands presented Ottawa with a thank-you gift of 100,000 tulip bulbs. The gift was given in appreciation of the safe haven that Ottawa provided to the Dutch royal family during when they were exiled during World War II.

This gift of international friendship became a springtime attraction a few years later, and the first Canadian Tulip Festival was held in 1953 to coincide with the blooming of the tulips. By 1963, the festival included a display of over two million tulips. In 2002, that number had grown to over three million tulips in bloom throughout Ottawa.

The festival now includes all kinds of activities and events — this year’s festival features performances by Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe, speakers including Margaret Atwood and Sir Bob Geldof, an interactive circus school, a free International Pavilion with food from 24 countries (yum, free food!!), and a number of concerts.

And of course, the stars of the show… the tulips!!!

Red tulips at Parliament Hill…

    Tulips by the water…

Tulips everywhere!!

Purple tulips…

  

Multi-coloured reddy-pinky-orangey tulips…

Red tulips…

Peachy tulips…

Burgundy & white tulips…

Some tulip close-ups… 

 

Even big wood tulips!!

A couple of artsy tulips…

 

And finally, a picture I took of a tulip in our garden last spring….

This is just a small sampling of the tulips in Ottawa. Do a search for Ottawa Tulip Festival on Flickr or Google Images to see loads more… or come to Ottawa see them for real!! :-)

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos from Flickr