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Published: November 13th 2008
When entering new cities, we'd found ourselves to be quite wary and over-cautious, but as our train rolled into Ottawa, our 7th city so far on the trip, this feeling wasn't so strong. Whether this was because we were staying in a converted jail so we thought we'd be safe, we're not sure! On arriving at the hostel, we found our converted jail hadn't been converted much at all! Apart from the entrance hall and reception area which were very modern with computers and vending machines, once we went through the big steel door onto the 'suicide-proof' stairs, it suddenly became quite scary, like we had imagined a prison to be. (Only from watching Bad Girls and Prison Break though, we don't have any other prison experiences...honest!)
Our room consisted of a squeaky bunk bed, a desk, a chair and two lockers. The cell door was still the original. Thankfully the mid sections of the bars had been filled in so we had a bit of privacy. Although at night, you could still clearly hear what was happening on the rest of the wing. On checking in, we were informed that the museums were free to enter on Thursdays. As
it was Thursday, we didn't want to miss out on a freebie so as much as we were fed up to the back teeth with museums and history, we dropped our bags and quick marched a mile or so in the scorching heat to the Canadian War Museum. In fairness, we probably should have given the museum at least half a day to do it justice, however, free entry swayed us to enter at 7pm so we only spent a couple of hours there.
The next morning we were on our way to check out the Parliament Buildings, as we'd heard that the architecture resembled those at home. However, on our way there we took a detour down to the canal locks that join the Rideau Canal and the Ottawa River. 2 hours later we were still watching in awe as the lock-keepers maneuvered boats up and down the 8 locks. When we eventually pulled ourselves away from the locks, we went for a short walk around the Ottawa River and Park. We finally made it to the Parliament Buildings where we took a tour of the Centre Building, after being reprimanded by security on the way in for
carrying a 6 inch camera tri-pod in our rucksack. What they thought we were going to do with it, we've no idea! Our tour ended with a quick peep into the library. This is the only remaining original room in the building thanks to a fire that destroyed the rest of Parliament in 1916. Fortunately, an employee at the time managed to close the steel doors that led into this spectacular room and save it from the fire. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside the library but we have a few of the outside which was equally stunning.
After tea, we went back to the Parliament Building's to watch a light and sound show which was projected onto the front of the building. This was superb and informed us of Ottawa's history. However Chris was not too impressed as he got eaten alive by mosquito's!
There were still a few things that we wanted to do on our last day in Ottawa. First, we wanted to visit the Canadian Royal Mint where they produce all of the collectors edition Canadian coins (circulatory coins are now produced out in Winnipeg). After getting caught up in a
'Jesus parade' we eventually made it here. The tour was really interesting and we learnt the full process from start to finish of how the coins are made from the gold, silver and platinum billets. We heard about the range of Olympic coins being produced for this summers Olympics and also how they have won the contract to produce the medals for the 2010 Winter Olympics being held in Vancouver. The highlight of the tour was the $1 million coin. The true value of the coin was in fact $1 million, as per the weight of the gold, however its 'street' value was estimated as $3 million due to its rarity.
Later in the day we walked back down the locks and went on an evening boat tour on the Ottawa River. We couldn't really see much as the boat was jam packed although we do have a spectacular photograph of the toilet roll factory from the left hand side of the boat.
Although Ottawa is only a relatively small city, despite being the capital of Canada, and not really a major tourist destination, we really enjoyed our visit here and had a great 3 days.
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Daddy Barrett
non-member comment
That spider was in Liverpool.
Yet another interesting and informative episode of Chris and Jaynes exploits around the globe.When is the book published?I am sure it would be a BEST SELLER.Take care Love Daddy.