About Jennifer Hughes
Ottawa City Editor Jennifer Hughes has an ongoing love affair with design, art, fashion and food that began many years ago with redecorating her dollhouse or staging impromptu Barbie fashion shows. Now she unearths the best of the above in our vibrant capital city.
Romancing the Capital
capital city scene: romantic winterlude date ottawa
(Feb.08.12)
Winterlude is officially on. Don’t worry – if you missed the opening weekend, there are still two to go. One of my favourite parts about the annual celebration of all things cold and wintry is the opportunity to leave my comfort zone (literally – I’m a big winter hibernator) and do fun things outside in the frigid months. So with that in mind, I’m planning the perfect Winterlude-inspired date for next weekend. I’ll share my plans:
Thankfully, I’ve been blessed with a husband who actually likes to shop. What can I say? I married well. We’ll cruise around the Byward Market in the late afternoon, and if we get too cold, we’ll hit the Rideau Centre.
We’ll then stash my our purchases in the car and grab our skates for a glide along the canal and back. We might even get ambitious and check out the new Rink of Dreams in front of city hall. (We’ll try to resist the urge to eat a Beavertail, in hopes of saving our appetites for dinner later, but maybe if it’s still early we’ll look for the green Stone Soup Foodworks truck) My husband will skate circles around me, and we’ll stop skating when I inevitably start complaining that my skates are hurting my feet.
Back in our boots, we’ll take a stroll through Confederation Park to see the ice sculptures in Rogers Crystal Garden. At this point it should be getting dark, so the sculptures will be lit by coloured lights to up the cool (!) factor.
Hit Play Food & Wine for dinner and drinks. Or maybe Sidedoor. Or maybe wander up Elgin St. instead and visit Town. This is the part I haven’t quite finalized yet. So many great spots within walking distance here, it’s hard to choose.
If we choose Town, it’s only a skip over to Pure Gelato after dinner for crêpes and hot chocolate, which seems like a perfect way to end the night.
Then it’s time to head home and snuggle up! Only a few more weeks of hibernation left.