Edmonton is an amazing city with a river on both sides along with a beautiful river valley and having some epic landscapes. There are plenty more reasons it’s worth visiting the Edmonton, Alberta’s capital from historic ride to a big industry, skyscrapers to plenty of shops and restaurants, etc. Edmonton is also called “Canada’s Festival City,” i.e. The Dark Sky Festival, or the annual International Fringe Festival with over 850,000 visitors. This fairly sizeable city has loads of activities to do from exploring the home of North America’s largest shopping mall to breathe-taking landscapes, a Segway tour in Canada’s largest urban park to the stunning Rockies in Jasper, Elk Island National Park to Lake Louise and the lot more. Edmonton is a complete package of fun, quirky, creative, adventurous like a roller coaster to skiing, biking, and a hockey game.
Edmonton valley zoo
Edmonton valley zoo is one of the premier attractions at the bank of the North Saskatchewan River, offering fun and education for all age groups. The zoo has a full range of species from different climates and habitats, having over 350 animals and home to an Asian elephant named Lucy and has a great collection of evolving collection animals and wildlife including wolves, reptiles, Mammals, Birds, Amphibians and Red Panda and much more.
Edmonton’s Museums
Edmonton has plenty of museums, a bit of everything from the history to culture, science to nature such as the Alberta Railway Museum, the Edmonton Public Schools Archives, and Museum, Alberta Aviation Museum, Neon Sign Museum on 104th Street, and the Ukrainian Canadian Archives and Museum of Alberta. With a special interest, it’s worth spending an hour or two at the world’s largest collection of insects at the Royal Alberta Museum. At the Royal Alberta Museum, you will get an insight into the aboriginal culture and the Wild Alberta gallery. In the Human History gallery, you will feel closer to Alberta’s natural and cultural history, wherein the Natural History gallery you will learn a lot about the animals and landscapes of Alberta. There are also regularly rotating features as well as some permanent exhibits from local artists, and artisans. The Neon Sign Museum is a representative of the commercial signage, and have a collection of historical working signs, on 104th Street. The Neon Sign Museum just across the road from Rogers Place and Mercer Tavern. And next, I would like to tell you about the fascinating Edmonton Public Schools Archives and Museum, which is an awesome place to find out the history of the public school system in Edmonton from its early beginning up to the more present day. This free museum has exhibits everything from curriculums to classroom designs, and how wars and disease impacted daily school life.
Alberta Legislature Building
The Alberta Legislature Building has an impressive Beaux-Arts style architecture and describes a bit of the political process in Alberta. The Alberta Legislature Building has 56 acres contains several memorials, statues, fountains, manicured lawns and the palm trees growing around the inside of the dome. This stunning Legislature building has impressive features like granite, sandstone, and interiors of marble, mahogany and a free 4-D show at the Pehonan Theatre to have a closer look at Alberta’s parliamentary history and culture.
Art Gallery and Street Art
A giant pyramid-shaped greenhouse fascinated me and spending a few hours exploring the several street murals and public art with entertainment facilities at Old Strathcona around Whyte Avenue, where 450 visual artists in action. 124th Street is home to several excellent art galleries along with a mix of eateries, boutiques, offices, funky stores and plenty of bars. The Bear Claw Gallery and the Peter Robertson Gallery are one of my favorites, having has a wide range of amazing First Nations art and flooded with the creative gorgeous reflections of-the-art pieces featuring Canadian artist Steve Driscoll. The Old Strathcona Antique Mall, the largest antique mall with over 130 vendors selling Victorian era jewelry, collectible glass, several Value Village and Salvation Army stores. And please don’t forget popping into is the Barking Buffalo, the fashion store cum a coffee shop that runs by three friends, who design and create all the items on sale and Salgado Fenwick for selling clothes with hand-printed designs from local artists. If you still have some time than The Prints and Paper Gallery, the Duchess Bake Shop has a range of art galleries for you. 100 years old Art Gallery of Alberta, is a photogenic building with a swirling structure of zinc, glass, and steel and its entrance hall are just as peculiar. The focus of the Art Gallery of Alberta to connecting people, art and ideas together, exhibits both temporary exhibitions and a large number of collection comprises over 6,000 of the futuristic pieces of historical and contemporary art pieces from both Canadian and international artists, plus this three spacious floor art gallery has a little cafe and gift shop.
The Muttart Conservatory
The Muttart Conservatory, a botanical garden that hosts four different four large glass pyramids biomes, surrounded by the greenery of the North Saskatchewan river valley. It’s worth adding the Muttart Conservatory to your bucket list to explore the biomes featuring some flowers and exotic plant species from around the world. Out of three biomes are having permanent displays, featuring a temperate zone, an arid zone, and a tropical zone and the fourth Biomes changes its flowers depending on the season, a rotating display, for example, a Tuscany themed exhibit.
West Edmonton Mall
West Edmonton Mall is the biggest mall in the world has over 800 stores with admiring the impressive full-size replica of Christopher Columbus’s ship Santa Maria. It’s more of a small city with a theme park, features 24 rides and the endless rows of shops, a water park, Galaxy-land which is the world’s second-largest indoor amusement park with 15 slides ranging from beginner to the extreme. This mall particularly offers everything for the whole family from a game of black-light mini-golf to the ice skating rink, bowling alley to bingo parlor, IMAX to the piano bar, aquarium to mirror maze, and comedy club to the world’s largest indoor triple-loop rollercoaster.
