Ottawa with Sylvia (8/4/2015)

Today was Ottawa day for our tour group, and Sylvia volunteered (?) for the thankless task of showing us around their beautiful capital city. And it is a beautiful city.  Even the drive in was very pretty.  We got into more of the farming area, with cornfields on one side and bean fields on the other.  As we got into the city, we drove along the Rideau Waterway, and Sylvia told us that when it freezes over in the winter, people ice-skate to work on it.  That road took us into the downtown area where their government buildings are, and Sylvia parked in an underground parking lot right next to the market (which didn't happen to be fully open today), then we began our "walking tour" of Ottawa.

We walked along the set of locks here, I think there are a series of 8, coming off the Ottawa River and starting the Rideau Waterway system.

Across the Ottawa River lies the province of Quebec. We could see the bridge that crosses the river, but we did not cross it today.



I no longer remember which building is which, for the most part, but they were all very beautiful.



And there were lots of steps.

This pretty building is Canada's version of the IRS.


And the landscaping was georgeous, as it has been everywhere.

What government building would be complete without a fair amount of statutes?  There were several here.

This tower is called the Peace Tower and is part of their Parliament building, which we later toured.  However, the Peace Tower had already closed for the day so we did not get to see the inside of it.

We also had some sidewalk performers.  Sylvia had a name for them, but I have forgotten it.

We stopped in at the beautiful Chateau Laurier Hotel, to use their restrooms and rest a bit.  This is a lovely old building, lots of marble.

The building across the street used to be a train station.

We finally arrived at the Parliament Building, which was quite a little walk from where we parked, and quite a few steps. 

Collins and Sylvia walked across the street to get tickets for the free tour, but the only tickets left for the day were for the 4:40 p.m. French Tour.  So they took them, but our French isn't exactly top notch!  On the grounds here is an Eternal Flame, I think this was created in honor of their centennial, in 1967.  They are preparing for their bicentennial ? celebration in 2017, and we saw signs around the city announcing this.

Our very excellent tour guide stopped one of the duty officers to get some information.

Among the many statutes here is one of Queen Elizabath on horseback.

There was also a little circle of statutes commemorating women getting to vote.

Since we had to come back here later, we decided to cross the street and find some lunch.  We ate at Darcy McGees Irish Pub, and right outside their entrance was this cool bear with a salmon.

Right next door was their Post Office, which was quite a substantial building.

And more statutes here.  This one is a war memorial, which I believe was built to honor the veterans of the War of 1812, but later more was added to include all the other wars, e.g., WWI, WWI, Korea, Afganastan.  Interestingly, Viet Nam was not included because Canada did not get involved in that war, although some of their people crossed into the states to join the U.S. Forces.

Part of this is in memory of the Unknown Soldiers, and there were two guards posted here.  While we watched, they began marching back and forth in front of the statute, which we were told they do whenever they feel the need to walk.

Again our tour guide stepped up to the plate and got more information for us foreigners.

We resumed our walking tour, back past the locks (we always have to stop and watch some boats go through locks anytime we get the chance).

We did a bit of a hike then, down to their Art Centre (I don't know the actual name of this building).  Across the street, we could see this cathedral with silver spires just shining in the sunlight.  Sylvia said we could go inside, so we did that later.

Outside the art building was this interesting sculpture of a spider.  Wonder how much they paid for this artwork?

Across the street were some embassies, including this one for Kuwait.

We walked into the art center gift shop but we did not buy tickets to tour any of it.  We didn't think we had enough time before our 4:40 tour back at the Parliament Building.  We did walk on to the Royal Canadian Mint, which had a cute moose guarding the gift shop.

They allowed us to take a picture of the gold brick, weighing 28 pounds.  Imagine 2 14-pound bowling balls -- it was quite heavy.

Outside Mazie and I took advantage of picture poses.

We crossed over and finally made it to the church, the Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica, built in 1841.  This is probably the most beautiful church I have ever been inside. It had a beautiful altar, lovely stained glass windows, everything was just breath-takingly beautiful.

We left there and headed back toward Parliament, stopping again at the Hotel for a 20-minute rest.  Collins and Dave had stopped touring with us at the Art Centre, and at this point, they headed back to Market Street to await our return.  We got back to the flag where we were to meet our French-speaking tour guide, and rested until it was our turn.

The only thing we understood were part of the instructions telling us what NOT to do.  Otherwise, it was all Greek, or rather French.  Thankfully, Sylvia was there to explain some of it.  I believe this first room is the House of Commons.

Note the speaker's chair

This was another room but we didn't see a name on it, and obviously we didn't understand a thing she said about it.

The library was self-explanatory, and lovely.  She told us, in English, that we had to be quiet because people would be in here working, but it was 5:00 and we didn't see a soul in here working!

The next building was the Senate; Senators here are appointed, not elected.

Again, the speaker's chair

As we left the grounds, I saw this animal which I thought was a groundhog (or woodchuck, they call them in Canada), but a fellow-photographer told me it was a marmot.

We met up with the guys and headed to the CASINO!@#$ for their buffet.  It is the Rideau Carleton Raceway, where they also have horseracing several nights a week, but not tonight.  The buffet was good, and when we finished eating, one car (Collins, Marilyn, Joe, and Dave) left for home, which the second car (Sylvia, Mazie and me) stayed behind to make our donation to the Canadian Casino Association, i.e., play the slots for an hour.  Sylvia was the only winner, but it was well deserved because she devoted her whole day to touring us around.  We left about 9:30 and had a little over an hour to get back to her house, then another 20 minutes or so to where we are camped.  Although we dodged the rain while we were touring, we did get some on our way home.  But between raindrops, I spotted a raccoon (we almost hit it) and a fox.  Always happy to see some wildlife.

It was a long day, but we were all really impressed with Ottawa.  It will be a highlight of this trip.