We left Toronto in the morning after breakfast for the haul up to Ottawa, Canada’s capital. When I first saw the itinerary for this tour, I wondered why we were to spend two nights in Ottawa and only one in Montreal. Capital cities are generally not the most interesting places. Turns out, the tourmeister knew what she was doing. Ottawa turned out to be a gem, and well worth the extra night.
The plan of the day called for us to proceed directly upon arrival to Ottawa’s leading attraction, the Museum of Civilization, then go to the hotel afterward. Nothing much to report about the drive up. More bare trees, endless fields, and not much of interest. The Museum, on the other hand, was way cool, starting with the wavy structure. And, of course, all the signs being in French. But, wait, you say. Ottawa is in Ontario, where English rules. Correct, grasshopper, but the Museum lies across the river in the town of Gatineau, which is in Quebec Province. The wavy structure allegedly sprang from native lore which holds that evil spirits reside in right-angle corners. Supposedly, there are no right angle walls in the entire structure. That might be stretching it a bit, but most everything did indeed look curvy.
This applied as well to the inside walls. Here’s the great entry hall, which contains a bunch of totem poles and other native carvings. The exterior wall columns are designed to look like upright canoe paddles. One of the totems featured a bow and arrow, a carving feature I haven’t seen before. I particularly liked this bag, made out of porcupine quills about 100 years ago!
One display was a re-creation of a native meeting house which used these fantastic carved pillars to hold up the walls and roof. I think I’d get the creeps if those eyes were staring at me all the time. At the right is a drawing of an interior.
As we only had a few hours at the museum, we moved through rather quickly. This easily is an all-day destination, or multiple days if you really get into it. We enjoyed the full-scale false buildings and streets that recreate actual venues from the provincial past, but there are hundreds and hundreds of smaller exhibits that are fascinating.
There is one floor-wing that is devoted to a children’s museum, with lots of hands-on things for them to do. Very liberal, these Canadians -- the Ken Kesey bus must trip out a lot of kids. The postal museum was a little more staid, but interesting.
Through the windows on one side of the museum you can see the back of the Parliament buildings on the bluff across the river. The rounded one in the foreground is a library. In the left corner is a peek at our hotel. Part of what made Ottawa so neat was that you could really walk to most everything of interest, in a beautiful setting.
This is the same view, taken just outside the museum. In the rift between the Parliament buildings on the right, and our hotel, on the left, is a seven-lock canal that once lifted boats up from the river.
It’s all for looks, however, as wherever the canal once led to is long gone and paved over. While in Canada, we’re staying at all Fairmont hotels. This one (on the left) is the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, one of the hotels erected by the Canadian Railways to encourage travel.
Before going to the hotel, we headed off to dinner at the grand buffet of the Casino du Lac-Leamy. The buffet was OK, especially as it was seafood night, but nothing was really worth taking a picture of, even the three desserts that I pigged into my pie hole. I did like the décor of the room where we ate. OK, we gotta have a food pic, so here’s breakfast (well, part of it anyway) the next morning at the hotel. We didn’t always get to eat at the Fairmont hotels for breakfast (about $27, included in our tour price), but when we did it was a treat. They really did things up right.
The next morning was devoted to a local guide tour. One of the reasons for scheduling Ottawa was for the tulip festival, which was just getting under way in a beautiful walking park.
We were told that, because of the weird early spring in March that the midwest and east had this year, followed by a cold snap, many of the tulips are not performing. You couldn’t tell it by these beds, which were dazzling.
So how did Ottawa become the site of an annual tulip festival? Glad you asked. It entails a bit of history, best explained on these plaques.
I wasn’t aware of all the colors that tulips come in. This bed was my favorite.
I also put the macro setting to use on these beauties:
Part of the tour was to the Parliament buildings, but only the exteriors. They are situated smack in the middle of town, on that promontory overlooking the river. The front of the complex is a large U-shape, the center with the clock tower (their local Big Ben),
sporting gargoyles, and two wings which house the members of Parliament.
Our guide was Terry, who was born not far from Ottawa in a small town, and an ex-schoolteacher and principal (in the sunglasses and striped shirt). He was very enthusiastic about his town, critical of the “do-nothing and see if it works out” attitude of Canadian politicians, and curiously praising of what he admired as the “can-do” American spirit. Frankly, I think Canada works a lot better than America does at this point.
Ottawa has some rather pretty waterfalls close by. I saw a kayaker hovering in the waters above these, but he didn’t make a go at it.
Samuel de Champlain is a big deal in these parts, sort of the father of his country, at least from the Quebecois’ point of view. We came upon a number of statues of him as we traveled the province. This one was the best of the lot.
We had the afternoon free to wander about. Mom wanted to take a nap, so Loni & I took off on our own. Ottawa might be filled with old classic buildings, but it has a whimsical side in its public artworks, these two in particular. For the height perspective of the needle, note the kneeling woman photographing it on the right. I wonder what effect the spider has on kids who walk by? It sure creeped me out.
More traditional fare lay in the local basilica (right across the street from the spider), which sported a zinc roof that had a silver sheen.
As the plaque says, its chief glory is the painted interior. It is rather stunning. Those are not marble columns.
Our room had a view that looked down the street into the local café and pub district, which covers an area about five blocks square.
On a beautiful weekend day like we were enjoying, every pub and restaurant was packed, especially the outdoor seating.
Obama cookies? He made a visit here a couple of years ago, and bought some cookies for his daughters at this local shop. Quicker than you can blink, the proprietor immediately named them the “Obama Cookies.” I peeked inside, but they didn’t look like anything special. We scoped out a nice place for dinner and went back to fetch Mom. Fortunately, it was in this district, just a block or so from the hotel, so she didn’t have to walk very far.
We really liked Ottawa, much more so than Toronto. Ottawa had an intimate feel to it. You really could just walk about an take in great scenery.
So, I won’t automatically discount capital cities in the future. This one was cool.
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