O is for Ottawa
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008Beat, is a very friendly guy from Switzerland (thankfully), so driving to Ottawa with him was a lot of fun. His English is quite impressive and the 7hrs of driving from Niagara Falls seemed to fly by. Upon arrival in Ottawa our first goal was to find the B&B he was staying at and then we’d look for the HI Ottawa Jail, where I would be sleeping. Luckily they were about a 10 min walk from each other. After dropping his rental car off, we walked to the HI Ottawa Jail, where I was staying.
Thankfully, I work for Hostelling International, as my room was free! The hostel in Ottawa use to be the jail until 1973 and is the site of the last public hanging in Canada. They’ve kept it pretty true to form. The halls are very cold, white and institutional. Each room is an actual jail cell complete with heavy iron doors. The room itself, however, was fairly roomy. I must admit that I wasn’t too keen about taking the Crime and Punishment Tour. After we took a few pictures, Beat and I headed for the Byward Market.
I immediately feel in love with this area of Ottawa. Lots of fruit and veg farmers, cool shops, great places to eat and lively Irish and Scottish pubs. Our craving for fish and seafood won out as we settled into our seats at The Fish Market. The food was excellent and the free Salmon Pate appetizer was fabulous. Afterwards we just roamed the market streets and tried out a couple pubs.
After a pretty restful night at the jail (oh how I was teased about this), we met Tuesday morning in the lobby. Beat had planned out our entire day. Although its not something I would normally do, it was a lot of fun. I did things that I never would have done otherwise and to top it off I had a quirky Swiss guy to do them with!
The morning consisted of a walk to Parliament Hill to watch the changing of the guard. Although it was interesting to watch, it was way too long! After 20 mins we just looked at each other and agreed to go elsewhere (I feel so unpatriotic saying that!). Instead we did an impromptu walk through Parliament building, including walking down some hallway until we were stopped and asked to go back because we weren’t a part of a tour group. However we did go to the top of the Peace Tower for free, which had beautiful views of both Ottawa and Gatineau, Quebec.
Leaving Parliament behind we walked along the Rideau Canal to the National Gallery of Canada. Beat wanted to see the 1930’s collection, which I gladly agreed to. The Dali paintings we fantastic and I was more than thrilled to view work by some of my favourite artists, including: Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Van Gough, Picaso, Jackson Pollack, Klimt and so on.
After lunch at the pub we took a boat tour along the Rideau Canal. It was a beautiful day for it. I kept chuckling though as there were several times when I would look over to see Beat sleeping beside me. However after tramping around the Byward Market and a fabulous dinner at an Italian restaurant it was my turn to feel tired and draggy. I tried hard to stay lively as we visited the pubs from the night before, but by 10pm we were back at the B&B and I was getting ready to take the Greyhound bus back to Niagara Falls.
I LOVED my 2 days off in Ottawa. Last minute trips are always the best ones!
Pam