Author highlights favourite jaunts
1 Bankview-Scarboro-Connaught
Features: Hilly, historic, dog-friendly, great for people-watching
Parking, Starting Point: Street Parking at 13th Avenue and 16th Street SW. Distance: 5.4 km
Highlights: Bankview “is like Calgary’s mini San Francisco. It’s very hilly, which makes for a great urban walk. Topography changes are always interesting. There’s a lot of streets that twist and turn in Bankview that you wouldn’t expect and you don’t know what you’re going to see around the next corner.” “Scarboro ... is a very high-end Calgary neighbourhood. There’s some older homes but mostly new builds reaching up and out. A beautiful neighbourhood that is not a grid-like setup so it does curve and twist and turn and there’s a lot of variety and architecture. “Connaught is a great area to find anything you like, (such as) great pita bread or humus at the Kalamata Grocery. Or you’re going to go right up to 17th Avenue which is a great walking street, especially nice (during) evenings in April. Winter-weary Calgarians love heading out into the nice evening daylight and getting ice cream, going to the cafes, going for a drink, sitting at the Ship and Anchor.”
2 Riley Park-Kensington-McHugh Bluff
Features: Cafes, dog-friendly, shopping, river and vistas
Parking, Starting Point: Riley Park Parking area, 800 12th St. N.W. Distance: 7 km
Highlights: “Wonderful gardens in the summer, the city does a fantastic job of planting annuals in that area and there’s also lots of cricket matches in that area. You can start at a wonderful wading pool that the kids may or may not want to leave. “You head up a hidden set of stairs up to Crescent Heights Hill, which is a fantastic viewpoint for the downtown and also the mountains when you get further along to the training stairs. “You can cross over the Bow River into Prince’s Island Park, which is a wonderful oasis and full of life in the summer because of all the festivals. “You can head into Kensington and grab your lunch. The options for food, coffee, drinks are endless in Kensington.”
3 Twelve-Mile Coulee Natural Environment Park
Features: Nature, trail running, vistas, kid-friendly
Parking, Starting point: Official parking lot is off Tuscany Boulevard, just north of Scenic Acres Link. Distance: 5.5 km
Highlights: “It’s a fantastic wilderness park. They are developing it nicely and developing some nice trails. The option for kids is to go down to the creek and creek-hop. Sometimes it’s a bit higher which means you have to be better at jumping which makes for a really fun family outing. Kids don’t want the straight and narrow and just a path. They want to be able to have some adventure. “Once you drop into the coulee, you cannot see the city anywhere and there are lots of options of paths to head up to Tuscany if you want to cut the walk short or you can head all the way to Nose Hill Drive and then you climb the hill up and you get the views: the views of Canada Olympic Park, of the mountains, of the river.”