Carlen's on Tour. That was today's motto as we headed out for a big "tour" day - 2 organized tours in one day. If yesterday was a slow news day, today was much more full on with lots of photos to follow.
Hans began the day, before Di awoke, with a visit to the gym which was fantastic. The Business Inn here in Ottawa has the best gym that we have had anywhere on this trip... Well, so far anyway.
Breakfast was also out of this world. They call it "De Luxe Continental Breakfast", but a continental breakfast where somebody is taking your order and cooks a fresh bacon, egg, cheese muffin (or a variation thereof, that was what Hans had) is going a lot further than your average "continental breakfast". We were impressed.
The view from the apartment reminded Hans of his childhood neighborhood of Skärholmen, a concrete suburb south of Stockholm. A certain sameness and blandness to the cheap and ugly 60's apartment blocks. A quick photo before we head out.
To be fair to the Business Inn, our view was better facing more south east, but it would have "ruined" the photo...
Off we go, north on Elgin Street towards Parliament Hill. On the way, we see two "flying" dunnies...
Location shot of Elgin Street looking south. Our hotel Business Inn is in the distance (their name can be seen in the middle at the top).
We accidentally stumbled onto the changing of the guard at 10am, a 30 minute ceremony each day. Well, we did think that 10.45am was an odd time to start our first Walking Tour of central Ottawa, but it was all timed to coincide with any punter who wanted to see both, which is probably nearly all of them.
Of course, the changing of the guard is purely ceremonial these days, but the guys were doing a great job, particular as the rain was seriously coming down at this time.
Sure, the ceremony made Hans reminisce about his time guarding the king and queen in Stockholm, a very long time ago, when he did his national service in Sweden. Well, just a tiny little bit...
To conclude the guard change, Wellington Street is closed off and they all march out and away from our sight.
After a bit of history around Parliament Hill and the buildings, we were off to the War Memorial and the grave of the Unknown Solider. This is also guarded by two soldiers as you can see in the picture below. The guy in the centre is not one of them.
The War Memorial was originally designed to be built after WWI and therefore dedicated only to the first world war, the great war, the war that was supposed to end all wars. Of course, more wars took place after that, but Canada only participated in 2 more wars with the Korea War being the last time that Canada was in a conflict.
The monument is very elaborate and depicts every type of service personnel that served during WWI. Each participant has a unique face and they are moving through the archway, from shadow to light. Fantastic sculpture work. The original signage on the monument for WWI had been expanded to include the years for WWII and the Korean War at the base of the monument.
The Grave of the Unknown Soldier...
There was a photographic session in progress as we arrived, with a couple of Korean War veterans being photographed together with some current military dignitaries (the younger guy in the middle).
We are then off to Sparks Street, a purpose built pedestrian mall parallel to and just south of Wellington Street. Sparks Street is named after Nicholas Sparks, an early Ottawa settler who donated much of his land to the town of Ottawa to ensure various services were provided for the town's people, like postal services and banking etc.
This is Ottawa's first post office and has remained a post office continuously. Di liked the lions.
Further down the street is the site of Canada's first political assassination, of Thomas D'Arcy Magee in 1868, which is where he lived then but with a new building these days that houses a Subway sandwich store.
The Bank of Canada is also there on Sparks Street. When they outgrew the old original building they enclosed it with a larger, newer building with an all season atrium facing the mall. They could not move it because their Treasury Currency Vault is deep underneath and could only be accessed from within the old bank.
Apparently, the atrium is a very popular lunch place for city workers as the atrium is 25 degrees C all year round, even in winter when the temperature outside are regularly lower than -20 degrees C.
Canada is progressively introducing polymer notes with $20 notes already in circulation and with $5 and $10 notes coming later in 2013 and in the following year. Pictures of how these notes would look like were on display in the atrium. Here is the $5 note together with our guide Jessie again.
Some Canadians in the group grumbled about plastic money and we felt we had to point out Australia invented in and have been using it for at least 15 years now.
We then circled the centre block of Parliament buildings and moved to the back overlooking Ottawa River and the Parliament including the renovated Library of Parliament below.
Canada started to undertake a "Millennium program" in 2000 to restore and bring all the buildings on Parliament Hill up to current standards and the library was first off the ranks, being the oldest and only original section of the building. It took 7 years to fix the ventilation, power, insulation and then restore it. They did a very good job.
The Whispering Wall is part of a monument to the two prime ministers, of Upper and Lower Canada, who worked in secret to arrange the confederation of Canada in 1867, which was a good idea but not popular.
This is one of those walls where two people can talk to and hear each other from either side along the wall and where nobody else who is away from the wall could hear it. Popular with young people no doubt.
Our Australian monarch also featured on a horse there and the guy in front looks like a true monarchist (not).
This monument of 5 women celebrates the movement to get voting for women in Canada. The women's argument was that "women are persons", because the Canadian Constitution says "persons" can vote, and therefore level with men. The Canadian Prime Minister at the time, during WWII, wanted to implement conscription for all Canadian men of a certain age to supply more soldiers. As women peculiarly supported this conscription, he in turn supported the women's case for voting. Of course, you may call it a political stunt of the "you scratch my back and I scratch yours" variety.
Anyway, the monument is very unique.
Di is looking up with awe to this pioneering woman.
Here is another example of restoration work underway - this time on the East Block - where the left of the picture shows the restoration and the right is yet to come.
A final view of the lawns outside Centre Block towards the West Block - and it's Yoga Wednesday??? Yep, for the last 5 years, at noon on Wednesdays, hundreds of people (sometimes 1,000) do yoga here when the weather allows.
The yoga is not formalized as people just turn up with a mat and follow a recorded instruction. Leg lifts are in progress below.
We finished up our tour at 1.15pm after two final quick stops at Chateau Hotel Laurier and the Byward market area. It was all a bit rushed at the end and we felt that we need to go back for further exploration later.
Back to the Hill Centre where we take necessary refreshment and an excellent hot dogs (perhaps the best we've had so far) from a stand nearby, and sit for 30 minutes before our next tour starts.
We could not help but be distracted by this guy representing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the one on the left in case you weren't sure...)
Very cute.
We meet at 2pm for our second tour of the day, the centre block parliament, and we know that everybody has to go through "security screening" before let in.
We lined up and...waited...and waited. The reason...? A guy just ahead of us was having all sorts of security issues - checks and rechecks. Turns out he was a nutcase - he was clearly drunk or drugged and it became evident (after 10 minutes of watching the drama) that he was trying to get into Parliament House with (at least from what we could see):
- A foldout 10cm knife
- 6 pack of beer
- A flask and a jar both with unidentifiable liquids
- Some prescription medicine pill cases - also not clear what they were
This is the visitor entrance foyer. The security screening happened to the left through the lit doorways.
Di waiting for the rest of our tour group to make it through security screening so that we could start the tour.
The chamber for the House of Commons. Some discussion was held within the group (many Canadians) as to why there is a green carpet. Inconclusive outcome.
This is the Reading Room. It was used by parliamentarians for reading newspapers etc in the days when getting back to their constituency was a big deal given the long Canadian distances. These days it is used as a committee room and caucus meet here.
Nice artwork on the walls of the Reading Room.
There were one of these foyer on either side of the buildings - this is the Senate's and is filled with paintings of British monarchs, given that Canada has a Constitutional Monarchy.
This portrait of young Victoria apparently survived 4 fires in 4 different cities, Montreal, Quebec City, Labrador and here in Ottawa. She was the reigning queen when Canada became a country and is held in high regard here.
The Senate chamber.
This room just off the Senate room was used as a smoking room with a faint waft of cigar still noticeable. Nowadays it is the Franconphile Room, which is similar to the Commonwealth Room but is used for meetings for representatives of the French history of Canada. This guy was looking for any good red wine and cheese there but none could be found.
The tour finishes and we walk briskly to the entrance to go up the Peace Tower, as the clock tower is named. One lift only taking a maximum of 7 people means we were in a queue for a while. Of course Di chatted to people nearby but also liked this lion. She is rubbing his paw while waiting for lift access. Good luck we presumed as the paw was pretty blackened by many previous hands.
Looking into Quebec across Ottawa River. The tower of the Library of Parliament in the centre.
Here we zoomed in on Ottawa River towards the west. Notice the waterfall between the second and the third bridges. We figure old Ottawa flooded from time to time.
Chateau Hotel Laurier to the left, Parliament East Block to the right in the foreground.
The monument celebrating the introduction of women's right to vote that we saw earlier.
Rideau Canal, yet to be explored.
Di is waiting to come down to earth again.
This was something we noticed as a bit odd as we walked home. The green "walk" man (or white as he is here) is displayed at the top, the red "stop" hand is also displayed at the top, the countdown seconds underneath are not working (or at least we assume that the lower display is for that). Perhaps they had just set up the technology without implementing it yet. It seemed to be like this at all street crossings in downtown.
We just had to take a photo of this baked moose from a local bakery. Perhaps not the most artistic, but certainly very cute.
Di's homemade Spag Bol for dinner, and we finish off our red wine, then we did some chilling. Hans took a short wander around the neighborhood as the sun was going down (after 9pm), mostly up and down Elgin Street, while Di continued to blog this at home.
We managed to see and learn a lot today. Big day. Good night for now.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment