Day 8 - Ottawa Day 1

Hi, this is Bridget posting today. Toby has done such a good job of keeping up wth our posts but then the Rogers wireless outage put us back a few days so I’ll  attempt to catch up. 

After all that driving we were very glad to arrive in Ottawa to stay at the home of my lovely friend Laura and her husband Paul. They are currently enjoying their own vacation and so we had a home away from home for a few days. When we arrived we were greeted by her neighbour Michelle with the key. She was incredibly sweet and kind to us throughout every interaction we had. What a warm welcome to Ottawa!

The first stop of the day was the Ottawa sign in Byward Market. When we stepped out of the Uber we were all hit with the heat and sunshine of a beautiful summer day, which we are not at all used to! 

 The first order of the day was lunch.  We’d had a much needed sleep-in and relaxing morning so it was a later start.  We lucked out and chose a restaurant with excellent pizza which we all thought was extremely delicious  

Nearby was the bakery where Obama once ate a cookie. They looked delicious but we opted for gelato instead 

Then we headed over to check out Parliament Hill and the canal locks

We had prebooked a tour of the west block where the House of Commons will be temporarily housed for the next ten or so years while they renovate the centre block. It was an informative tour and I’m glad the kids could see the House even though they were not in session. 

This temporary location is in the courtyard of the west block. They built freestanding structures so as to not damage the exterior of the building. The roof was made of glass and supposed to evoke a tree canopy (and I thought it did although hard to see in the pictures)  

War memorial 

One more pass by the locks, this time a little closer to see the huge gears used to lift the gates

I headed to the grocery store to restock our food supply. After several days of limited dining options on the road it was nice to eat some veggies!

Overall it was a nice first day in Ottawa and such a treat to relax back at Laura and Paul’s.