We took the family to Assiniboine park in 2011 in early summer, and it was actually by accident.
We had planned on spending the afternoon at the zoo in Winnipeg, which I find out later is actually called the Assiniboine Park Zoo. On the drive to the park we drive by this fantastic looking gated park/garden/sculpture place. THe both of us looked at each other and were immediately excited about taking a look at the place. ONce we were done pulling a wagon full of tired and hot kids around the zoo our excited had faced a whole lot. But we thought we would give it a try.
Now what we had found was one amazing huge garden(s), and the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden. The sculpture garden is inside the English garden but you just have to wander around and you will find them both.
Now it does seem strange to take these,
these boys don’t sit still for long, just like bees!
to this,
Assiniboine Gardens
But it worked, it worked so well!
They were tired and hot and were even kinda bored with ‘seeing’ animals at the zoo. But these gardens allow you to walk multiple paths, get close to the plants and flowers (no touchie!) and slowly walk around in the sun and shade and relax. It allowed them to wander and be more free and investigative than the zoo.
We quickly split up with the young one teetering around at his own pace and random directions, while the older two were a bit more focused and suggestible as to things to look at or paths to take. We spend a good hour or so wandering around.
Water feature in the Leo Mol sculpture garden
Now the plants and flowers are amazing, we went early in the summer so the flowers were crazy cool, though i am sure later in the summer there would still be nice flowers to view. We would suggest this to families that like to have a little walk, enjoy to beautiful gardens and spend some time talking about some of the amazing flowers.
WORD OF CAUTION: this is not a picnic place or ball throwing kinda park (there are lots of those in the Assiniboine Park though). This place is a tranquil quiet place, and so may contain it’s fair share of khaki wearing-loafer donned-pearl necklaced-sun hat wearing-culture snobs (and there is nothing wrong with that). So you either have to enjoy other people getting annoyed by active kids (I do), or maybe keep away.
The whole Assiniboine Park was nice, great picnic places, room to run, zoo, but the gardens were a surprise that was excellent.
oooooh, sculpture in a garden.
