Tulip Festival

It's Tulip Festival in the city right now. It's not a gathering with food, music, vendors, etc. It just means that tulips are blooming everywhere. There are several city parks that have tulips on display and even one park, on the other side of the water from us, has quite extensively designed gardens of tulips. I have mentioned that I love tulips on this blog and was looking forward to seeing them this spring.

On Saturday morning, G and I dropped A off for a playdate (thanks for watching her, dear friends!) and headed to a smaller park that borders the Bosphorous River. There were enormous tulips in bloom and some tulips weren't blooming quite yet. It was a smaller display of tulips than I'd expected but I hope to make it to the other side to that park with more extensive gardens of tulips next weekend. Nevertheless, the park was gorgeous, woodsy and natural that you could easily forget that you were smack dab in the middle of a gigantic, densely crowded city. It also had a couple of scenic views of the river with benches. I admired the tulips, G snapped pictures, and we enjoyed an early lunch in the park before picking up A and taking her home for her nap. It was fortunate because it started raining on our way home.

Some pictures of tulips:

Some other pictures:

There were other varieties of flowers

Park's scenic overlook of the river and city

There were clusters of them, never solitary

The city is home to millions upon millions of stray cats