Calgary, Alberta, Canada - More Than Just The Stampede!

• Calgary Flames NHL Team

• Calgary Stampeders CFL Football team

• Canada Olympic Park: within city limits for skiing, snowboarding, and tubing. You could also use the ski jumping hills, a bobsled and luge track, and aerials runs. Designed for casual enthusiasts and thrill-seeking tourists, try Skyline Luge (even kids, 110 cm tall!) or with parents if smaller.

• Canada's Sports Hall of Fame is at Olympic Park as well, try shadow boxing with Olympic Gold Medallist Lennox Lewis.

• Calgary Zoo: a world-class facility which takes advantage of its proximity to the Drumheller Dinosaur fossil finds to have created life-size dinosaurs around the property. There is nothing like looking up to see T-Rex about to step on you!

• Calgary Tower: looms over the city and has an elevator to whisk you to the top for cocktails and appetizers, overlooking the city.

• Calgary Stampede: transforms Calgary into an old western town for two weeks, early in the summer - virtually EVERY business decorates as the old west, with huge pancake breakfasts for 50,000 of your closest friends, world-class rodeo, chuckwagon races, midway - bring your cowboy hat!

• Calaway Park: a year-round midway-type park, with concerts and all the food the kids love!

• Country music in the bars and concert venues - some of the biggest stars. Speaking of bars, look for Cowboys, voted top three mega bars in North America!

Day Trips:

• See the mountains? Go there! Banff and Lake Louise are one and two hours away.

• Edmonton

  is the OTHER big oil Alberta city, two-and-a-half hours north.

• Kananaskis Country: closer than Banff, the home of Nakiska ski mountain for the 1988 Olympics, plus a sprawling park with several 5-star hotels.

• Drumheller - Tyrell Royal Museum - dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs!

• Much lesser-known, think no crowds, is Waterton Lakes National Park , which connects at the border with Montana's Glacier National Park - try the Crypt Lake Trail - called one of the most thrilling trails in the world by National Geographic - you hop a boat at the Waterton marina, travel across the lake, then hike past two waterfalls, across a moraine, through a tunnel on your hands and knees, to emerge on the other side on a ledge with a steel cable drilled into the rock face, looking down as water falls hundreds of meters below. Crypt lake is at the top, and make SURE you get back for your return boat ride, or it will be a chilly night in the mountains for you!

• Model Milk on 17th Avenue - Notable for its happy hour food and drinks from 3-5:30 p.m.

• Bar Chouette - French cuisine.

• Fortuna's Row

• Charcut Roast House - Chef from Top Chef Canada and Fire Masters.

• Saltlik - Near The Calgary Tower (look up!), great steakhouse.

• Alloy

• Rouge Restaurant - Located in an old 1890's house in Downtown Calgary.

• Vero Bistro Moderne - Offers French, Italian, and Spanish cuisine!