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The best park in Calgary for a spring day

2013-05-15T04:51:43Z

Spring- a wonderful time in Calgary when the buds begin to bloom on the trees, the sun’s warmth feels incredible on bare skin, and it feels like half of the city flocks outside to enjoy the weather. One of the best locations in Calgary to get outside and make the most of a sunny spring day is Edworthy Park in Montgomery. The park has over 5 km of pathways within the park area, and the pathways are connected to the Bow River bike and walking paths.

Downtown Calgary is a short bike ride or rollerblade away from the park, or a pleasant afternoon park. Edworthy has several playgrounds for the kids, and numerous areas to sit down for a picnic lunch or dinner (take advantage of the fact it’s light out until almost 10pm this time of year!)

Also found in Edworthy are 400 year old Douglas Fir Pine Trees- undoubtedly some of the oldest trees you will find anywhere in town!

While you’re taking in all of the nature within the city, don’t forget to stop in at Angel’s Café for a latte or ice cream. It’s located right by the bridge to the park, and offers tables with excellent views of the Bow River.

Check out the City of Calgary's photo gallery of the park here!

The Best Mall for Spring Shopping in Calgary

2013-04-10T03:19:26Z

Spring in Calgary means wet, cold days, where snow may appear more often than it does in November. Calgary is one of those cities where spring leaves you wondering whether it will snow 5 times in a week, or only 3 times. What's a person to do when the weather is damp and cold......shopping at one of Calgary's fabulous malls! Market Mall is close to Centro Motel and is beautiful inside, easy to navigate, plenty of parking, and has a new Target opening up this summer!

A huge perk of Market Mall is the ease and accessibility of parking- both underground and above ground. With over 200 stores to choose from, and being a mere 5 minute drive from Centro, it is the perfect choice.

Calgary is an excellent option for shopping in Alberta, and is only a short drive from the many small towns in southern and central Alberta. Market Mall also has delicious dining options, both with an expanded food court, Moxie's, and Milestones! Another perk is the fact that Market Mall is just one level, saving on those pesy elevators and escalators at other malls around the city.

Spring Skiing in Calgary

2013-03-13T16:32:04Z

Did you know that within minutes of leaving your room at Centro Motel, you could be strapping on your skis and carving out some fresh tracks for yourself at Canada Olympic Park? Calgary is one of the few cities that has a full ski hill right in the town!

As every skier and snowboard knows, it is pretty awesome to be able to have some space on the hill when you're racing down, and the recent addition of a new chairlift at COP added another 100 vertical feet as well as an additional 8 acres of ski able area. When you do the math, that works out to space for 2400 more people to ski each hour- pretty impressive!

If you're lucky and keep a close eye out while you're on the lift, you might even be able to see some of the professional athletes who use Canada Olympic Park to train all throughout the winter. COP is a destination for skiers, snowboarders, bobsledders, ski jumpers, and various other winter sports. In fact, if you're reading this and are an athlete, give us a call at Centro about some awesome rates!

One of the biggest perks about skiing in the city is that when you're tired after a day in the fresh air bombing down the hill, the drive back to your room is a mere 5 minutes- then it's nap time before checking out all of the delicious restaurants that the NW of Calgary has to offer- but we will save details on that for another posting coming soon.

Pub Options Near The Centro Motel

2013-01-23T18:12:47Z

Montgomery is one of the areas of the city that's slated for an ongoing Redevelopement Plan. It has some pretty neat stuff in it; Community Gardens, a San Francisco Trolley-Car style of public transport, even sidewalks designed to be porous so we don't get any ice or water build up on them in the spring. However, until that day off in the future, there is one area of service in the Montgomery neighbourhood that is somewhat under-filled. That area is Pubs. Don't despair though, you can always go...

On A Time Travelling Trip To 1980's Saskatchewan at Pazzer's

If that sounds horrible to you, well... It's not. Trust me. While the decor is pretty kitschy, the beer is well-priced, and the food is surprisingly good. Just to clarify here, I don't mean to say that this is the kind of place you would expect to produce bad food, I mean it is surprisingly good for ANY Pub. Also, $4 beers for Happy Hour is pretty nice. The service is quite good, the prices even better, and the hand made Perogies are fantastic.

This bar is also a very short stagger from the Centro Motel. Which makes the $4 Happy Hour drinks even better.

Grab A Few Asahis' With Your Sashimi at Sushi-Bar Miki

For those who don't know, Asahi is a brand of Japanese Beer. It's pretty good. Not as good as the Sashimi produced by Sushi-Bar Miki, though. Having said that, you can get better Sushi elsewhere in Calgary (there are 66 Sushi Bars in the city according to Yelp), but this place is a must-go if you're looking for the authentic home style Japanese restaurant experience.

The bottom line is, at Sushi Bar Miki there are decent prices, good quality food, and excellent service.

The Centro Motel is Calgary’s first Boutique Motel. Located in the Montgomery neighbourhood, just south of Calgary’s Motel Village and now on a completely unintuitive, yet direct, path from the airport. The Centro offers stylish, trendy rooms at competitive prices. Also, our parking lot is just massive. For more information on booking, rooms and rates, check out the home page, or Contact Us.

Holiday Shopping With Centro Motel

2012-12-10T19:06:40Z

Have you finished you Christmas shopping yet? Yeah, it's okay. Neither have I. Not to worry, though. Calgary's first and greatest boutique motel is here for you. If there's one thing that Calgary is good for, it's shopping. If you're coming from points near the city, you'll definitely want to drive (which is where a Motel comes in), after all some of the best shopping in Alberta is just a short drive away.

Merry Christmas from the Internet's current ruler. The Cat Named Tardar Sauce.

The Core

Downtown Calgary's solution to the intermittently horrible Alberta weather. The Core is a group of office buildings connected through +15 and underground walkways. If you're looking for some brand name high end fashion items this is the place to go.

Parking can be a bit of an adventure here. But if you head down on a weekend not only is it cheap, but there are Valets.

Chinook Centre

Chinook Centre is easier to drive into and out of than anything in downtown Calgary. They are missing some of the more high-end stores, but they make up for it by having more Tech stores and a movie theater.

The options for eating are better with Chinook as well. I mean, they have Sushi AND a Yogen Fruz.

Cross Iron Mills

Bigger. Better. Faster. Stronger. This is the Bionic Man of Calgary Malls. I guess, technically it is outside the city limits, but at the rate Calgary is growing that won't last more than another year or so. This place is massive though, so if you're going with a group I suggest the 'Divide and Conquer' shopping strategy.

While it is a little further to drive, it has pretty much everything If you only have time to go to one Shopping Centre, go to this one.

The Centro Motel is Calgary’s first Boutique Motel. Located in the Montgomery neighbourhood, just south of Calgary’s Motel Village. The Centro offers stylish, trendy rooms at competitive prices. For more information on booking, rooms and rates, check out the home page, or Contact Us.

Winter Driving Tips

2012-10-26T21:37:41Z

The Centro Motel is located, along with several other motels, near the Western edge of the city of Calgary right on the Trans-Canada Highway as it enters the city proper. Although, this is a prime location for a motel to be in, it does mean that at this time of year we get to see some truly horrific Winter Driving. In fact, it was the heavy snowfall we received yesterday and the awful, awful driving perpetrated by the citizens of this city that inspired me to write this article. All of you drivers out there, stay safe and don't forget to...

Get Winter Tires!

There's no excuses for this one. You can pick up a cheaper pair on websites like Kijiji, or eBay. Installation is inexpensive, and it can make all the difference. Waiting to get them isn't a good excuse either, as Fall is right next to Spring as the worst time of year for slippery roads. Remember, snow and ice is more slippery the closer to 0 Degrees Celsius it is, and most car accidents happen during periods of milder temperatures.

Avoid Cruise Control On Icy Patches!

More drivers should know about this one. There's always some rumour flying around that if your car hits an icy patch while on cruise control it will think you're going up a hill and begin to accelerate, launching your vehicle off the road. Happily, this isn't true at all. The real reasons you should avoid using cruise control in icy road conditions are much less dramatic.

One of your best defences when losing control on wet or icy pavement is to immediately take your foot off the gas. Since you either have to hit a button or tap the brakes to disengage cruise control, you lose some response time. Otherwise, the only reason to avoid it is to help keep you engaged in driving. Having the cruise control on may lull the driver into inattention.

Avoid Sudden Moves

In my opinion, Winter is the only season when you should take the speed limits as gospel. If conditions are bad , and there's a road sign indicating a low speed, it's probably good advice. Once, I was young and driving my car at the time (a 2-door coupe) on a snowy road in the mountains. I took a turn about 20kms faster than I should have, and the only reason I'm still around to type about it today is the time I put in at my AMA class purposely throwing the car into a skid and learning how to control it. Even then, it was a near thing. The moral of the story? Take it slow. Don't accelerate or brake suddenly, and for God's sake slow down BEFORE you take a turn.

Carry An Emergency Kit

According to Transport Canada (a Government Ministry I didn't know existed until I started researching this article) you should have the following items in your car kit.

Keep the following items in your trunk.

shovel
sand or kitty litter
traction mats
tow chain
compass
cloth or roll of paper towels
warning light or road flares
extra clothing and footwear
emergency food pack
booster cables
matches and a "survival" candle in a deep can (to warm hands, heat a drink or use as an emergency light)
fire extinguisher
extra windshield washer fluid
fuel line antifreeze
reflective vest

Keep the following items inside your vehicle.

road maps
ice scraper and brush
flashlight
first aid kit
blanket (special "survival" blankets are best)

Fast and Female at Canada Olympic Park

2012-09-17T21:48:42Z

One of the most interesting neighbour we have here at Centro Motel is located just up the road on the way out of town. Canada Olympic Park is always up to something interesting. Whether flinging Municipal Government officials down the fastest zipline on the continent, letting your average Joe and Joette rocket down an icy tube at highway speeds, or just teaching people how to ski, you can always count on something interesting going on up there. Speaking of which, coming up at the end of this month, there's an event you should definitely take notice of.

Something you may have realized if you were paying attention during the last Olympics is that women tend to be vastly underrepresented in sports. In every sport from Hockey to Judo, the women's teams are smaller, have less funding, and are generally regarded as the “B” team when compared to the Men's divisons.

This segregation isn't caused or effected by any one thing, You can argue that Society is to blame, constantly programming young girls to shy away from physicality in favour of femininity, what with Cosmopolitan Magazine and so on. But, a big part of what keeps women's divisions small is the lack of support, and role models, for young girls in sports. If you ask any given Canadian-born professional Hockey player why they wanted to get into the game, and why they stuck with it, it's almost always the same two-part answer; “I wanted to be Wayne Gretzky”, and “the community, the friends I made”. Quick! Who's considered the female equivalent of Wayne Gretzky? Hint: If you don't know the answer, neither do any young girls.

Hoping to provide a solution to the two-part problem of involvement is an organization called Fast and Female. With their events, programs, promotions, and key note speakers, they are looking to build a female-centric community of support and celebration for young female athletes. Coming up on the weekend of the 29^th is their 3^rd Annual Sports Day in Canada.

“Fast and Female - a non profit organization dedicated to inspiring and motivating girls to stick to sports - is inviting ladies ages 8 to 99 years old for a morning of fitness and inspiration at Canada Olympic Park. Held in conjunction with the CBC Sports Day in Canada, the women-only Fast and Female event will feature sporting activities for ladies of all skill and abilities.”

All proceeds from the event will support Fast and Female's programs for 2013.

As the flyer would suggest, you don't necessarily have to be already involved in any sports to get something out of the day. Also, any sport will do. From Yoga, to fencing, to Ice Hockey and Boxing, come on down and meet some of your contemporaries!

UFC Is Coming To Calgary: Here's Where You Can Go To Avoid It

2012-07-19T17:02:45Z

There are two reasons people are coming to Calgary this weekend. First is the Ultimate Fighting Championship Fight. The second is the Sun and Salsa Festival. Only one of those will have a Best Salsa Competition, and I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one it is.

Hint: It isn't the one where half naked guys wrestle with each other.

If you're coming into Calgary this weekend, you're probably doing it for the UFC fight. If you're not, and you don't know what the UFC is, or why it's a big deal, then here's some info on it for you. To pre-empt your next question; no I do not know why the clothing lines are so popular with some people. Although, if you see someone wearing anything with the words “Tapout”, or “Assassin” on it, you can safely assume two things. First, they take UFC very seriously (maybe a little TOO seriously). Second, they probably drive a truck.

If you're sick of being surrounded by a mob of wide brimmed baseballs caps with the stickers still on them and flashy oversized shirts sporting advertisements for facial reconfiguration, I highly recommend seeking sanctuary at the Sun and Salsa Festival.

The Sun and Salsa Festival is basically a street party for charities, including the hilariously ill-named Brown Bagging for Kids ( if you don't know why that is a hilarious name for a children's charity, click here). There are shops and booths, as well music and performances on several stages. While the Sun part of it is dependent on the weather, there is a Salsa competition featuring prizes for Best Salsa Presentation and Most Creative Salsa. Starting in 2005, the festival has featured the Miss Sun and Salsa Pageant. Each year, it selects a "Miss Sun and Salsa", "Sun Princess" and "Salsa Princess" to promote the Kensington community and the festival. They represent the festival around the year, inside and outside of Calgary. If you do want to check out the festival, I recommend you go early, though. Last year attendance was upwards of 10,000 people.

Check Out Centro's New Pinterest Boards!

2012-05-16T17:14:41Z

There's been quite a lot of buzz about a little website called Pinterest lately. Most of it good, some of it grumpy, and I have to admit that at first I thought it was going to be like Instagram for websites. Instead of crappy, over-filtered pictures of kittens and hipsters it would be crappy, over-filtered images of people's favourite arts and crafts. Possibly even some yarn-bombing.

However, I was somewhat wrong. Pinterest is a pretty great way to share visual information.

Instagram is still full awful, emo, preachy-ass hipsters, though.

Luckily, we have the Instagram Rebuttal Meme to toss a whole basket-full of Snark at all those goddamn hipsters.

At any rate, I've put up a few boards with some great photos of the rooms and suites from the various Hotel properties that I work for. So, if you're into design, travel, or you just want to see what kinds of hotels inspire our various Boutique Hotel Concepts come on over and take a look!

The MTT Music Festival

2012-03-26T22:15:14Z

Calgary has new music festival. Created by the gentlemen behind the Music Times Two Blog/Online Music Magazine, this weekend the MTT Festival will rock the city to dangerous levels of cool and will test your personal threshold for awesome.

This weekend the two day Festival will feature 30 acts, most of them either renowned Indie bands or relative newcomers. For more info on the event, see the Music Times Two Blog, and for tickets Click Here. If you want up to the minute updates on guests and showtimes you can also follow them on their Facebook Page.

Sponsors for the event include our sister hotel in downtown Calgary, the Nuvo Hotel Suites, which is offering a %10 discount on room rates for concert-goers. If you don't want to stay with us for some reason ( I can't think of one), then give them a call.