Take a field trip to Granary Road

Calgary is home to some great family attractions from Heritage Park to the Calgary Zoo to Calaway Park. Now there’s another location to add to the list with Granary Road! This new attraction is offering a new way to do educational programming with a ton of retail and restaurant offerings as well. Granary Road is broken into two main features: the Active Learning Park and the Public Market.

Active Learning Park

The Active Learning Park takes learning and play to a whole new level. There is an admission fee to enter the park, but you’ll see why when you go. The park provides a series of 11 different exhibits that focus on play areas in animal, insect or agricultural themes. Make sure to wear some good shoes as you’ll travel over three kilometres on dirt paths to get to over 36 acres of interactive fun. Adults and kids will come across larger-than-life installations like giant animatronic spiders in the Arachnid Web, enormous mushrooms in the Mushroom Meander and taking a leap with amphibians through the Frog Pond. They’re pretty exciting to see up-close-and personal and help spark the imagination and creativity in learning.

My favourite part of the park is the Farm Friends petting zoo that is home to a variety of baby animals like goats, pigs and alpacas. The staff on hand will let you in to some of the enclosures so you can pet the animals and teach you about where the animals come from and how they are part of our food system.

Granary Road will be a popular class field trip during the school year. Each exhibit is set up with a learning pavilion area with televisions and projector equipment that can be closed off for classrooms and teachers to use. The public is also welcome to take their own field trip through the park to discover on their own as well.

The Active Living Park is open daily every day from April to October and weekend days for special Holiday/Winter events.

The Public Market and The Loft eateries

The Public Market gives Calgarians in the deep south a closer farmer’s market option with tons of great vendors. The market is free to go to and works as a standalone visit or a nice way to finish the day after visiting the Active Learning Park. You’ll find stands for all types of wares from curated home décor, a wine store, artisanal chocolate to Mexican eats.

 

A post shared by The Loft (@theloft_calgary) on Jul 27, 2017 at 7:20pm PDT

The folks over at Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts have teamed up with Granary Road to host The Loft, three distinct food concepts within the building. There’s The Loft Bakery for all your baked goods like croissants, muffins, breakfast sandwiches, and freshly baked bread.

The Loft Kitchen is for your hot meals on-the-go for quick moving counter-service lunch stop like fresh sandwiches, soups and salads that are built to order as well as pre-made and packaged items. A carving station is also incorporated into The Loft Kitchen if you’re looking to eat some freshly carved and locally sourced meat.

The Loft Lounge is probably the best place to relax, people watch from above and enjoy a bevvy or two.

The indoor market and The Loft is open year-round Thursdays to Sundays.