Day 10 - Ottawa Day 1

We spent the day in Canada's capital - Ottawa. The plan was to visit Parliament Hill, the area in town where, as the name says, the Canada Parliament building can be found, along with other attractions of the city.

According to our AAA guide from late June to late August daily, at 10am, you can watch the change of the guards in front of the Parliament. It is not easy to get three kids up and to any destination by 10am in the morning, but Margie had us all up, fed, and at the front lawn of the Parliament 5 minutes to 10. Unfortunately, after asking, we found out that the changing of the guards does not start till next week! Oh well... we got a good start of the day. Weather was wonderful and it turned out that Parliament Hill was only 10 minutes drive from our hotel. Parking was not too hard to find either.

The Parliament building was spectacular. From the outside views, the surrounding area, the Peace Tower, everything was impressive - and for the first time in our trip, free. The grounds were covered with statues related to persons and events of the Canada history. The views from the top of the hill were spectacular.

We even saw the Parliament Hill cats; a special shelter built for stray cats that live in the area; all such cats have been spayed and vaccinated properly! I also saw for the first time black squirrels in the area.

We visited the inside of the Parliament as well; specifically the Peace Tower, which is the main tower in the middle of the Parliament building. I was able to take some great pictures of the vicinity from the top of it.

After that, we stooped for lunch at a nearby restaurant - Yesterday's was its name - and exchanged some more currency; hopefully enough to finish the trip. The exchange rate today was 0.9955 Canadian dollars for 1 US dollar.

We then walked at the bottom of the hill, crossed the Rideau Canal on the Ottawa river and climbed the hill on the opposite site of the Parliament. Once more, we were rewarded with spectacular views of the area.

We finished our tour for the day with the visit to the war memorial (monument of the unknown soldier) just across the street of the Parliament.

We plan to return tomorrow for more sight-seeing in the same area of the city.

The day ended with a run to a local store (Lobe's) for milk, dinner at the hotel, and a long visit to the 4th floor pool. We were alone in the pool and it was the warmest pool of all the pools we have visited so far. Kids and adults enjoyed it a lot and managed to stay for almost an hour. Kids watched the movie Atlantis and are now sound asleep. We are all looking forward to the second day in Ottawa. I have to admit though, that home also sounds very good right now...