Tourism Winnipeg

From there, have a picnic amongst Assiniboine Park's expansive green spaces. You could pick up lunch from The Park Café at the Qualico Family Centre then take a seat in one of Assiniboine Park's six other gardens where floral fragrances hang in the air like your wanton desires. Once you've sufficiently taken your fill in nature, do as the locals do and get yourself over to Bridge Drive-In (BDI). No spot in the city can claim to have kindled more relationships than BDI, the spot where teenage couples get soft serve cones before taking a romantic stroll over the Elm Park Bridge. This love affair often continues later in life, as elderly and middle-aged couples have made BDI their Sunday night tradition, honouring the site where their love first caught flame. It's seriously too cute. Much of the same can be said about Corydon Avenue, Winnipeg's Little Italy, where the gelato shops and sunny patios are filled in the summer with lovebirds sharing sips and icy treats. If you are looking to get real steamy, boy do we have a spot for you. It's called Thermëa by Nordik Spa-Nature, a Scandinavian spa so exquisite that its very name, when whispered amongst the pines of the Fort Garry neighbourhood, will bring you to pure, sensual bliss, as if its eucalyptus vapours were nibbling at your ear. All you need is a bathing suit, a robe and some flip flops, and this place will do the rest with its hot thermal pools, steamy and dry saunas, and cold pools and waterfall, which are all meant to use in a hot-cold-hot cycle. Thermëa is ideal for couples, as you'll need someone to rub the invigorating and exfoliating lavender salts on your back between steam room sessions. Plus, they have tantalizing cuisine for lunch and dinner where dining in robes is mandatory. Or for a different take on rejuvenation, the luxurious Ten Spa at the Fort Garry offers a couple's hamam treatment that is out of this world. Well, out of this continent at least, as the hot air bathing ritual has roots in Turkey, where this cleansing method brings physical and spiritual purification. Couples will be enticed with a sensual warm shower, salt rub, olive oil wash, and ultimately a full body massage, as you are fully renewed by this sumptuous treatment. As well, Inn at the Forks' Riverstone Spa — cited as one of the best hotel spas in Canada by enRoute magazine — is more than a treat. Riverstone has three different couples packages — Spa for Two, the Aaaaahhh Package and Together We Will Escape — that involve couples massages, hand and foot therapy, an overnight stay in the beautiful hotel, and breakfast in SMITH restaurant (or room service), that will make for the ultimate 24-hour pampering. As night falls, head out to one of Winnipeg's celebrated tapas restaurants because nothing entices like sharing bites. In Osborne Village you can savour Spanish flavours at Segovia — Winnipeg's most acclaimed restaurant. If you get there early be sure to get a seat on the charming little patio where you can sip some cava and feed one another delectable bites. Post-dinner, take a romantic stroll down the city's famed Assiniboine Riverwalk, where the babbling waters sound like sweet nothings in your ear. Surely you'll hear birds sing overhead as if to say, "Get a little closer." While holding hands is not mandatory, I bet you do, you smitten little lovers you. After this abundance of romance you'll surely need a place to stay, and the one Winnipeg hotel tailor made for romance is Mariaggi's Theme Suite Hotel, a highly rated hotel where every room is an exotic, worldly location. TripAdvisor has listed Mariaggi's as one of the 10 most-romantic hotels in the world, so you can't argue with that. Go get 'em, tigers. www.tourismwinnipeg.com 45 WINNIPEG ITINERARIES Riverstone Spa: Sparrow Hotels Segovia

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