Cross Canada Trip: Day 70 - Saturday, August 9

Happy Birthday to my dear husband! Hope he enjoys the day.

We are taking the commuter bus into the city and then taking the Gray Line Hop On Hop Off Bus Tour. The park and ride is just across the 417 from us so should work well for us. It is a beautiful morning and promises to be a good day. We get on the bus and head for Parliament Hill. I had asked the bus driver if his bus stopped there and he said yes, but when I asked the name of the stop later he said Queen and Banks, but then after that he turned to us and said you missed your stop - but that stop wasn't called. Oh well, no matter we found our way and just as we got there We heard the pipes andd the drums. They do this everyday at 10 am and we just got there when it was in progress.

Old city with marvellous grandiose structures. Dan is standing beside a railing on the walk way just after the parliament buildings. He looks short compared to the railing and it's stone pillar. But he still a good looking dude for his age! :)

We got our tour tickets but could not get on the upper deck as it was full. So we decided to go to the Canadian War Museum.

The museum is divided into 4 Sections - the first being the Battleground outlining the need for families and tribes to come together to protect what was their territory. The second section was about wars for Crown and Country.

The War at the Plains of Abraham settled years of war between the British and the French.

The remaining sections talked about the various wars that shaped our countries.

The museum made me feel very sad that war took so many young lives, left so many orphans. In the Boar War alone there were 345,000 horses and mules killed. How awful.

We ran out to catch the bus and continue the tour. The bus took us into Gatineau and Hull Quebec as it is just an the other side of the Ottawa River. There is a life size bronze of Rocket Richard in a park there. Then the bus continued on through the rich part of Ottawa - Rockport. Where your taxes for a single road could be a million dollars - so you have to be wealthy to live there. We saw the Prime Ministers premises but too many trees and gates to get a good look - but yes it is very big.

The Chateau Laurier built by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1912 and across the street is the Grand Trunk Railway building built at the same time and now used as a convention centre.

The Museum of Art with the huge sculpture of a spider in the entrance way.

Ottawa was first called By Town and later was changed to Ottawa. Ottawa in aboriginal means to trade.

The By Ward Market - this market takes up at least 4 square blocks and you can probably buy anything you want here.

Lots of choices to eat in this Lower Town and so we hopped off and started to look for a place to eat. We chose The Auld Dubliner and we sat upstairs on the balcony overlooking the street. Awesome view of the street from here.

This picture is of a pizzeria restaurant below and Dan said - oh look that woman reminds me of Kathy Smith - and she did. Dan also said that Allan would thoroughly enjoy this part of Ottawa.

Here is the ice cream shop - pretty cute!

We got back on the bus and ride it back to the Parliament Buildungs, but when we went in to get our tour tickets A boo hoo there were no more Englush Tours left for today only French. Well I guess that will teach us not to visit Capital Hill in the summertime - too many tourists! So we took a walk up to the buildings and around.

This is Dan standing beside the arched entrance - he looks small compared to the entrance which is probably three times higher than what you see here. The building of the Parliament Buildings were started in 1865, and they still stand today. There is some works being done on the West Block for Canada's 150th Birthday Celebration in 2017.