Festival de los Tulipanes en Ottawa

Desde 1953 Ottawa ha sido sede del Festival de los Tulipanes conmemorando aquel obsequio y celebrando la paz, la humanidad y las distintas culturas del mundo. 2005 fue un año especial porque se celebraron los 60 años del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial además del 150 Aniversario de la fundación de la ciudad de Ottawa, Capital de Canadá.

Durante las dos semanas aproximadas que dura el festival, la ciudad se viste de colores con millones de tulipanes por todos lados. Una de las áreas más bellas es la de Commissioners Park donde se pueden apreciar más de 300,000 tulipanes en flor.

El festival no solamente es la exhibición de tulipanes, hay conciertos, exposiciones artísticas, desfiles y fuegos artificiales. Music in the Tulips - parte del festival - reúne cientos de músicos que tocan en el Commissioner’s Park, en la Festival Plaza-Ottawa City Hall y en Major’s Hill Park

El desfile en el canal de Rideau tiene lugar el último fin de semana del festival



Festival de los Tulipanes en Ottawa

Siraj Bagh

The garden shot into the limelight for the first time in last April for being the only garden with such a large number of tulips in Kashmir. Thousands of local as well as domestic tourists visited the garden last summer. It is spread over 700 kanals and located between between Harwan-Shalimar and Nishat-Chashmeshahi

It was known as Shirazi Bagh in earlier times, after the name of a senior official who headed the department in the Maharaja’s times. The development of the tulip garden is expected to give a fillip to the tourist industry and could become a locale for shooting films.

About four lakh tulips are being planted this season. The garden will be ready by the coming spring. The peak flowering season for tulips is between March and May.

The Mughal gardens are being developed with the help of INTACH. Siraj Bagh should emerge, within two years, as the biggest garden in Asia decorated with rare local, national and international flower species.

Having found the garden in a dilapidated condition, the Chief Minister had issued instructions to develop it on a priority basis. Immediate steps were taken by the Floriculture Department and according to R L Pandita, former Director Floriculture, the garden was opened in April last year. It was decorated with lakhs of tulips that were planted in November last.

"This is the biggest and ideally located tulip garden to be developed in Asia", said Syed Imtiyaz Ahmad, Project Manager, Siraj Bagh. "This is a unique place for the emphasis would be only on tulip cultivation", said the official.

This garden will have European variety of tulips. The garden is the part of a three-unit landscape of floriculture which is becoming a great attraction for tourists, local, domestic and international. The other two units are the famed botanical garden spread over 1380 kanals of land and PI section, spread over 460 kanals.

With this the entry system would be introduced for Siraj Bagh next April like six other main gardens under the Floriculture Department, the officials said.

Not only the natural landscape snowcapped and pine-dotted mountains, lakes, rivers and rivulets, make Kashmir valley attractive for tourists from across the country and the globe, the gardens have also been laces of great attraction. In Srinagar, the Dal Lake and Mughal Gardens of Shalimar, Nishat and Cheshma Shahi are the most famed.

Shalimar garden, built by Emperor Jehangir for his beloved wife, Noor Jehan, with four terraces is 539 by 182 metres and gets water from Harwan through a canal lined with fountains. The fourth terrace had been once reserved for royal ladies. Nishat garden was laid in 1633 AD by Noor Jehan’s brother Asif Khan in the backdrop of Zabarwan hills. Cheshma Shahi or the Royal Spring was laid by Emperor Shah Jehan in 1632 AD, and is famous for refreshing digestive water. Two kilometres uphill from Cheshma Shahi is situated the Pari Mahal, a school of astrology founded by Prince Dara Shakoo, Emperor Shah Jehan’s eldest son who was killed in the
war of succession. The Cheshma Shahi-Pari Mahal has been developed as a tourist village. The Siraj Bagh located between the botanical garden and PI unit is close to the Cheshma Shahi.

One of the most beautiful flowers, tulip has its origin in Persia (Iran), and had been introduced in the Europe in 17th century, where it had been developed in different varieties, opine the experts.

Kashmir due to its geophysical and climatic conditions has also its "indigenous variety of tulip, but now Europe leads the world in its commercial and recreational cultivation", comments Syed Imtiyaz Ahmad Project Manager.

Siraj Bagh, which has become home to tulips in Kashmir, has a unique and feasible topography with a plane area in the centre that suits different varieties of flowers. It has slopes suited for different varieties of fruit plants and hilly slopes with wilderness suitable for wild flora and bushes.

Out of the total land, 400 kanals have been marked for flower cultivation including cultivation of tulips. Other flowers include gerberas, gladiolis, alestromaria, roses, carnations and lillium that are being grown for cut-flower business and local consumption.

Flowers would be in full bloom, beginning with the tulips in the spring. But the entry would be only on a nominal payment like six other major gardens under the Floriculture Department.

Last year the Department earned Rs 1.50 crore from the entry fee into the gardens.

Kashmir tulip garden

The tulip garden in Indian administered Kashmir inaugurated Saturday by Indian Congress President Sonia Gandhi is not Asia’s largest as authorities claim.

Gandhi, who is considered to be the most influential women in India, was made to inaugurate the Tulip garden claiming it to be Asia’s largest tulip garden, although the garden is not the largest in the Asia.

The tulip garden spread over an area of 5 hectares and earlier known as Siraj Bagh has also been rechristened Indira Gandhi Tulip Garden.

Around 1.2 million tulips of 60 varieties have been grown in this garden this year.

However China has a much larger Tulip garden.

The Shanghai flower port in Nanhui district of eastern China boasts of 28 hectare Tulip Park, which is five times larger than the Tulip garden in Kashmir.

Kashmir’s Tulip garden is far from attaining the status of being Asia’s largest park, although it can be termed as South Asia’s largest such park.

The Tulip Park in China is complete with Dutch-style architecture with windmills and other attractions.

More than 3.2 million tulips of around 300 varieties are in bloom at the park as compared to Kashmir’s 1.2 million tulips of 60 varieties.

When it comes to world’s largest Tulip park, nothing beats famous Keukenhof Tulip Park of the Netherlands.

The 32-hectare park is the world's largest tulip garden.

Every year, from March to May, Keukenhof Park hosts a flower show with over seven million tulips in blossom.

Though the authorities here claim that the park will ultimately cover 50 acres of land, but that is couple of years into the future.

The authorities are unable to meet the needs of tulips bulbs.

Like in 2007 this year too authorities had to import majority of tulip needed for the park.

A 900,000 tulip bulbs out of 1.2 million were imported from Holland in 2008.

Both the Dutch Tulip Park and Chinese Tulip Park attract 700,000 and 600,000 tourists annually.

Kashmir too is lured to this massive inflow and is getting encouraging results.

In 2007, 30,000 tourists visited the garden.

This year about 200,000 visitors are expected.

There has been another surprise as the Tulip garden was unexpectedly renamed from Siraj Bagh to Indira Gandhi Tulip Park.

The park was named Siraj Bagh after the person of same name who headed the Kashmir’s floriculture department during the regime of Dogra rulers.

Rio de Janeiro 's Tijuca National Park

Parque Nacional da Tijuca, also known as the Tijuca National Park, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is an 8000 acre rainforest that was once stripped bare of it’s native vegetation by coffee and sugar cane plantations. A tribute to the ecological mind of King Don Pedro II, Tijuca National Park is one of the last few remnants of the Atlantic Rainforest that at one time dominated the Southern coast of Brazil.

Replanted over ten painstaking years by engineer M.G. Archer, Tijuca National Park was result of the project ordered by King Don Pedro II in 1861. Concerned that the erosion and deforestations caused by the sugar and coffee plantations combined with a dramatic decrease in rainfall in the area would severely reduce drinking water available to his subjects, the King began the reforestation of the area.

Today, Tijuca National Park is the largest urban forest in the world, home to 30 waterfalls, hundreds of plants and trees and at least 100 different species of animals. The park actually reduces the medium temperature of the city by approximately nine degrees. A spectacular tourist attraction, Tijuca National Park surrounds the Cocovado Mountain and the Statue of Christ. It is also home to Gavea Rock also known as Pedra da Gávea, Beautiful Rock or Pedra Bonita and Tijuca Peak which is the second highest peak in Rio de Janeiro at 3350 feet.

Visitors to Tijuca Peak are awed by a seemingly unending view of the entire city of Rio de Janeiro including the Rio-Niterói Bridge, the famous Maracana Stadium, the Favela of Rocinha, and Sugar Loaf Mountain. From the peak, you can also look down upon the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, Botofogo and Leblon. Inside the park, visitors are encouraged to wander the trails through an exotic jungle resplendent with tropical flowers and stunning waterfalls.

Those with an adventurous spirit can climb to the peak of Pedra Bonita and join hang gliders in a heartstopping flight back to the bottom. Other areas of interest include the Mayrink Chapel whose murals were painted by Cândido Portinari, the Paula and Virginia Grotto and the Luiz Fernandes Cave. The Gabriela, Cascatinha and Taunay Falls are also popular amongst the tourists and locals alike. If you have time, you’ll also want to make a point to see the pagoda style gazebo at the Vista Chinese Outlook as well as the giant picnic table made of granite known as the Mesa do Imperador.

An absolute must see on your visit to the Tijuca National Park is the Pedra da Gávea which literally means Rock of the Topsail. Pedra da Gávea is a rock composed of granite and gneiss that rises 842 meters above sea level. It is said that the rock’s position and size have caused it to erode heavily and that erosion has created the impression of a human face on the vertical face of the rock. An inscription carved into the face of the rock, however, suggests something entirely different. That inscription, according to is believed to have originally been Phoencian and has been translated to read “Tyro Phoenicia Badzir Firstborn Jethbaal”, allegedly referring to a ruler of Phoenicia named Badzir, which would date the carving to around 850 B.C.

Many scholars believe that the image etched on the rock was not caused by erosion but rather was carved into it, a portrait of Badzir. There are several inconsistencies within the inscription itself, however, that seem to suggest that it is not authentic. It was originally reported in the 1800’s during the years that Brazil was struggling for her independence. Many believe that the inscription was a political tool of the early and short-lived empire under Emperor Pedro I.

Also located in the Tijuca National Park is the Cocovado Hill and the famous Statue of Christ. Recently named one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Rio de Janeiro’s most famous landmark, Christ the Redeemer embraces the city with his outstretched arms rising 30 meters into the sky from the top of the top of the hill. The Hill itself is over 2310 feet high.

Gaining entrance to the park is a fairly simple process. The area has been divided into three sections by major roadways and it is accessible from virtually all parts of the city. The park can be dangerous after dark so you may want to get an early start. The park is open year round and there is no admission charge. Guided tours of Tijuca National Park are available. Jeep tours will take you right into the park and they can handle most of the steep terrain. If you prefer to hike or bike without a guide, do not venture into the park alone.

The Corcovado Rack Railway runs from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm and is the best way to reach Corcovado and the statue. Although it is only a 20 minute trip to the top, the wait can sometimes be several hours so be sure to allow yourself enough time to enjoy the view once you get there. You’ll want to avoid the peak on cloudy days as cloud cover will obscure your view.

The address of the Tijuca National Park is Alto da Boa Vista – Parque Nacional da Tijuca. Phone number is (55-21) 2492-2253 or 2492-5407. The entrances to the park are located on Sumare Road, R. Almirante Alexandrino, Dona Castorina Road, Vista Chinese Road, Redentor Road, Acude da Solidao Road and Cascatinha Road