I would never have known about the Turkish Peace Garden in Montreal had it not been for a chance encounter with Okan Ozsoy at the Vivaldi Ceramic Gallery in Bodrum last winter.

We returned to Canada last spring determined to visit the Gardens on our next trip to Montreal. Montreal is just a two hour drive from our home in Ottawa and one of our favourite cities. The Peace Garden is located in the Montreal Botanical Gardens.

It is a gift from the Turkish community in Quebec, Canada  and the Iznik Foundation in Turkey. This beautiful garden  is small, centered by a fountain and surrounded by flower beds which, each spring, are full of that glorious Turkish motif, the tulip. The tulip motif is reinforced with great effect, again and again in the nine low walls and nine pillars decorated in brilliant and colourful Iznik tiles.  And these tiles were selected, arranged and produced in panels  by none other than Okan Ozsoy of the Vivaldi Gallery right here in Bodrum.

Now when I am in Canada I can always find a touch of Bodrum in Montreal.