Speaking of lunch: You’re welcome to bring your own picnic. Visitors can to kick back in the Muskoka chairs dotted amid the plants in the field closest to the entrance. Adults can be kids again on these big wooden swings.Ĭloser to the entrance, there’s a small playground with slides and climbing structures, and on the opposite side of the field, there’s a set of larger swings meant for adults. Near the tower, picnic tables are clustered in a small grove of trees, providing welcome shade. In between two of the fields is a small observation tower where you can get a sweeping view of the whole property from a large wooden platform. (Touching the flowers is allowed, but picking is not.) Picnic tables in the shade at La Maison Lavande. I took the advice of a staffer at the gate and rubbed a blossom between my thumb and forefinger to release the scent, and it was marvellous. To my surprise, even after a light rain, the air wasn’t heady with lavender fragrance. Dogs and other small pets are welcome in the fields, as long as they’re leashed. Today, orderly rows of lavender bushes bloom across several fields, and visitors are invited to stroll among them. After testing various types of lavender-did you know there are more than 100 varieties?-they settled on a few that thrived in the lower Laurentians climate. Partners Nancie Ferron and Daniel Joannette fell in love with lavender on a trip to Provence and decided to grow it on their Saint-Eustache property. There are three more fields beyond this one. Tiptoe through the lavender in the Laurentians The view from the observation tower of lavender plants in bloom at La Maison Lavande in Saint-Eustache, Quebec. Here’s a quick snapshot of my recent trip to La Maison Lavande.ĭisclosure: I took this trip with support from Tourisme Laurentides and the mentioned businesses, none of which reviewed or approved this post. A two-hour drive from Ottawa can bring you to fields of fragrant lavender on the southern edge of the Laurentians, at La Maison Lavande in Saint-Eustache, Quebec.Īnd if you want to smell the lavender in bloom, late June to mid-July is the time to go.

Need more relaxation? From our 5-Minute Fitness series, here are a breathing technique to help de-stress, a simple stretch to help soothe your neck, and a simple exercise to help stretch away stress.Sometimes, I’m startled by how little effort it takes to travel somewhere that feels completely different. There’s a lot of tension in the world, and it is good for our minds, our health, and our souls to find a few minutes every day to relax. Which is what I hope you get to spend some time doing over the next week. For centuries, you could “relax your grip” or “relax a knot,” for instance, but it wasn’t until the early 1930s that the intransitive sense caught on, and you could take time off work to just relax. Relax found its way into English in the late 14th or early 15th century, but in the beginning it existed only in the transitive sense - that is, it required a direct object. Re- + lax does it really mean “to lax again”? Not precisely, but that’s not far from the truth: The word traces back, through Old French, to the Latin relaxare “loosen, stretch, or widen again,” from that re- prefix and laxare “loosen.” One of the joys of being a word lover is looking more deliberately at words we use every day and seeing patterns that we might normally miss. Keep reading, and together we’ll do a little relaxing. Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and allow your mind and your muscles to lose their tension.

Opposite of relax word