Today was a day divided into 2 parts. First, exploration of Rideau Canal, Hotel Chateau Laurier and the By Way markets. Later, the Museum of Civilization and a light show at the parliament. Sorry, another long blog with many photos.
Part 1 walking as follows:
The closest point of the Rideau Canal from where we stay at Business Inn is only an easy 5 minutes walk away. The bridge here is clearly a destination for the young at heart and the romantics. Di looks eager to explore more.
Slip sliding away...
Facing north we can see the old Union Station, now a conference centre, and Chateau Hotel Laurier behind it. A little guy wandered into the photo and made a cute addition.
Hans felt left out so got into the picture shortly afterwards...not quite as cute an addition.
Rideau Canal looking south under Rideau Street.
Hans thought he would help out but of course when the real work started, he wasn't allowed.
The manual winching of the gates and opening the sluices are manned by 3 people at each side. It seemed to be a combination of permanent staff and supplemented with college students during the peak season. Great summer job.
You can walk across the gates (obviously only when they are closed) and we did. Great view looking down and lock staircase is an appropriate name. The drop is significant.
The water level takes only about 10 minutes to rise but the whole staircase of 8 sluices takes about 2 hours to complete.
Waiting for the next winching. You can not be in a hurry here. It doesn't work like that.
Funny this. The guys on one side and the girls on the other side. Hmm...
We spoke to a lady on one of the boats and apparently you pay a fee per foot of boat. You can buy an annual or seasonal pass that entitles you to unlimited lock support for that period.
We could have been at the locks for a very long time as it was very interesting, but we moved on to Hotel Chateau Laurier which is literally next door to these locks.
Pretty impressive hotel from street level.
Hotel Chateau Laurier is grand inside too, but no more that the Waldorf Astroria or other smashing hotels that we have seen during our trip.
We found an empty room just off the lobby where we sat down and had a break enjoying an apple each.
Finally for the morning, we are off to the By Ward Markets, but first a small detour to get Hans a new hiking hat as there was an outdoor equipment shop next to the markets on York Street.
Hans old Australia fisherman's hat is... Old hat. It is gonski, was lost in Montreal. Unexplained. No more. Hans was very fond of that hat. So, a substitute hiking hat was found and purchased.
Then off to the markets...
This is the inside portion of the markets. Lots of eateries and they all looked and smelled pretty good.
Di was drooling as we walked past all the fruit and veggies and the fromage shops. She insisted that we had to have a photo like the below, so we did.
Hans liked this place better, a Husband Day Care Centre. Definitely has merits... Road testing is required later...
We then decided to walk back to our hotel for a break. Time now was around 12.30pm and for us old people to last the distance tonight, we needed a midday break.
On the way, we stopped outside of McDonalds where this ad was placed in the window. Why, because the promotion has been running a bit on TV here, but it is essentially a McFeast (or so Di says based on her memories from 30 years ago, Hans wouldn't know as he is not a McDonalds fan at all).
The funny thing was that as we stood there chatting, a skateboard punk rocker passed us and yelled out "it's excellent" and then proceeded to tell us he was drunk and thats the only time he ate it. Laughs...
We returned to our room for a few hours, enjoyed the cool air con, some leftover lunch and a bit of a rest before we headed out again at 3pm for a big afternoon.
Across town yet again and onto Alexandra Bridge on the other side of Hotel Chateau Laurier.
Here is Hans posing in his hiking gear and his new hiking hat.
Our destination in the background - the Canadian Museum of Civilization (with the big flag).
The museum's entrance reminded us of a face... Unfortunately, this minibus shuttling disabled people just turned up as we were going to take the photo.
Free on Thursdays from 4 to 8pm means we just wandered in and found a map and our way around. Looking down inside from near the entry.
First to the Canada Hall which tries to sum up European mankind's contact with Canada through to the more modern era of 1950's migration and onto around 1980s.
The displays are set up really well and you move through separate rooms as you move forward through time. It's a bit of a maze and Hans likened it to Ikea. Once you start, you are stuck and can't take a shortcut out. The pamphlet advised 45-60 minutes here. It took us nearly 2 hours with watching films and reading lots.
Here was Di in a late 19th century Ottawa city street.
OK, this also reminded Hans of the movie "Chinatown".
It was 6pm by the time we get out the other end and we need a break and a coffee. We found a cafe inside the museum and sat for a while to take it all in.
We decided we could only probably manage another 60-90 minutes max so headed to a smaller exhibition titled Face to Face - a short list of important and/or interesting people who shaped Canada.
We started with someone familiar. The first prime minister of Canada as a combined nation - John A McDonald. He also was the initiator of the trans continental railway, CPR, built in the early 1900's, which opened up the mid and west of Canada. That's when the country truly took off.
The man shown in the photo below particularly attracted our interest and "fan club". He was born in Norway and was a keen skier and loved the outdoor life, which he promoted to kids. He died at the age of 111, still active in skiing. In fact he broke his arm skiing at the age of 104 but that did not slow him down. We applauded.
You then had the chance to do your own famous portrait...
Or in our case - mug shots!
Around 7.15pm we were back on the bridge heading into town for the next part of our evening. Here Hans is straddling 2 provinces - Quebec to the right and Ontario to the left.
Parliament hill and the Rideau Canal entrance looked great in the gentler evening light.
By Ward seemed the logical place for an 8pm dinner but overpriced in many places. We found a small Indian restaurant but it was still overpriced by our standards, and the food and service were average. We are looking forward to good curry in the UK.
Hans spotted a familiar image. Yep, the Swedish embassy was here.
Sorry, yet another photo of Rideau Canal. The light, you know...
Well, we were a bit early for the Mosaika lightshow so we wandered across to Sparks Street... Where salsa dancing was in full swing. We stood and watched for a while. There were some really smooth and good dancers there.
Around 9.30pm, we wandered back to the lawns in front of the Parliament House and found ourselves a good spot on the pavers, next to an enclosed area for disabled people. We reckoned that they had put aside a good spot for them so the trick was to be as close to them as possible. We were right. Bring on Mosaika.
Like Vivid in Sydney, the light show is projected on to the building - in this case the central block of parliament.
It starts simply with the natural features of Canada in black and white - the geese were great flying along the building.
The animation then gets more interesting and complex with a fire at the base of the Peace Tower and interaction of historic TV footage and animation. We saw the development of the Canada Pacific Railway, going to war and many events that shaped the nation.
Towards the end there was a very patriotic summing up of what it means to be Canadian and some great animation of moving parts of the parliament building. Hard to capture on film. We figure if you're interested in the show check YouTube of excerpts of the 30 minutes. Here are a few final photos.
The end - we all applauded.
Fantastic day and night and we were not back at our hotel until 11pm. Blogging this and it is after midnight. Good night.
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