I’ve never lived in an apartment building so the occasional time I am up high I really enjoy the views. Today I watched workers at City Hall begin to lay down layers of ice on the circle at Centre-left with a fire hose like I used to do in Carabram Park.
We ate breakfast in the apartment then headed over to the Parliament Visitors Centre. When we were here with Megan and Alun the line stretched down the block for the free tour tickets. Today, we walked right up to the counter and had our choice of times. We chose 1020 and then went for coffee.
We were able to see the partially constructed ice rink on the front lawn, but it doesn’t open while we are here.
We took a walk around to the library and views of the Ottawa River, then went through the airport style security before assembling for our tour.
We saw the House of Commons (green), Senate (red) and library on the tour.
The doors to the House of Commons and senate.
Various hallways were nicely decorated for Christmas.
Climbing up the stairs to the Peace Tower elevator affords a nice view of the ceiling of the main entrance to the Centre Block.
We took the elevator up to the top of the Peace Tower and saw the Memorial Chapel for soldiers killed in combat. The views from the Tower were good. Unfortunately, it was rather overcast. The Centre Block is going to be closing for renovations that will take 10 years to complete. The West Block is having what was an outdoor courtyard covered with a glass dome to house the House of Commons, seen in the first picture below from the Peace Tower. The Senate will be moving to the old train station across from the Château Laurier. This is scheduled to happen next September, so if you’re thinking of visiting the Centre Block of the Parliament buildings, there are only 10 months left to visit before it will close for 10 years.
Here’s the controversial hockey rink being built for the Canada150 Celebrations.
Next we went to the currency museum. It used to be on Spark Street, quite unassuming and mainly focused on displaying banknotes and coins. It’s now called the Bank of Canada Museum and has a specially built building on Bank Street. At the moment the building seems rather overbuilt for the amount of displays they have, and has less of a focus on notes and coins, which is what interested Michael last time we visited. It was definitely worth the price of admission, though – free!
After that we returned to the apartment, via Spark Street, where we found one of those name signs that seems to be becoming ubiquitous, and past City Hall. We bought lunch downstairs and ate in the apartment. I tried Freshii, which I quite enjoyed. Michael and the kids had Subway.
We spent the afternoon walking around exploring. Near our apartment is a great spiral staircase from the Laurier Avenue W bridge over the Rideau Canal down to the Rideau Canal Eastern Pathway.
Byward Market had a AWATTO sign.
We went to see Louise Bourgeois’ giant 9.25-metre-tall spider Maman at the National Gallery, and walked around the gallery to discover some of their other outdoor pieces including one called Majestic by Canadian artist Michel de Broin which is an array of revitalized New Orleans streetlamps, uprooted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
We also visited Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica where the late afternoon sunlight through the stained glass was making rainbows on the stone columns.
After that we walked through Byward Market to find that the wonderful Sash Gelato which we visited twice when we were in Ottawa with Megan and Alun, had closed so we just picked up a few groceries at the Metro and headed back to the apartment.
We chose a nearby all you can eat (AYCE) sushi restaurant for dinner, but unfortunately didn’t want to eat all that we had ordered. We all agreed it was the worst sushi we had ever had, possibly with the exception of an AYCE Sushi restaurant I went to in the small southern Ontario town of St. Thomas. Definitely avoid Sushi Village if you are in the area. It really only would have been worse if it had resulted in food poisoning.
After our disappointing dinner, we walked back to the hotel. Tonight only Owen braved the tepid pool.
Michael and I each had a bath to soothe our sore feet and legs. We had left the car parked under the apartment and walked everywhere. Ottawa is such a great city for cycling and walking. The distances, while longer than I am used to walking at home, are quite manageable. Having said that, I get the sense that Ottawa isn’t quite as Active Transportation (AT) friendly in the winter as the summer. Many paths and staircases were blocked. I assume the city doesn’t want to spend the money shovelling snow and ice. We saw many signs like this.
There were far more bikes parked in the garage under our apartment than cars and many empty car parking spots. The picture below shows only one of more than half a dozen bike parking areas.
Discover more from Lisa Stokes
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.