Tuesday,
July 24th 2001
City hiking in Ottawa downtown.....
Today we are doing the hardest of all hiking sorts: City hiking.... Luckily enough, Ottawa downtown is not very large, so you can really do everything by foot. The only point is what is everything? Some Canadians say: "the best thing from Ottawa is the railroad to Montreal" or "the plain to Toronto". Probably made up by the people from those large(r) Cities.... Never the less, Ottawa is clearly a typical Capital. Lot's of government buildings and museums. Also the people on the street seem to be different.... We decided to make a nice walk among the the city and absorb the atmosphere.
There is no way you can get around the logs in Channel Rideau. Using 8 levels of logging, the boats are being brought down (or up) 24 meters. All operated by hand (!) This Canal was hand dug early 1800's directly after the war between USA and Canada. Canada wanted to make sure, they had a reliable route for transporting military goods around in case the USA......... Well it seems it has helped, as Canada is still Canadian..... At he picture left you can see the Parliament Hill and the best hotel in town, Chateau Laurier
At the right another nice view at this
historic monument with more left from the logs, the National Galery of Canada
The two friendly policemen truly volunteered to pose for their
proud: Parliament Hill. We also got some good tips from them on which museums were worth
visiting, so multi-tasking force in Ottawa!
We continued with one of the tips we got: the Canadian Museum of Civilization. We just needed to cross this bridge over the Ottawa river going to Hull in Quebec (this is how the Anglican and French found a compromise... the City is more or less divided in 2 parts into 2 Provinces.... Ontario and Quebec) Crossing the river turned out to be not too boring, thanks too all the Art Shops which were located on the bridge.
The Museum itself is not only a beauty from the outside, but also from the inside it was one of the most interesting historic museums I saw since a long time. The expositions were set up very realistic, almost an open-air museum! The museum is know for its unprecedented collection of Totem piles and original Indian culture exposition
Actually the whole (relatively young) history of Canada from 1000 - 2000 was covered with great detail and was more than just a collection of old stuff in glass cabinets, as the pictures clearly show.
Besides what we had seen so far our selves, I left with knowledge that Canada is not that far distant country any more for me....
We finished our walk around with a nice
view on Parliament Hill and
some shopping and drinking at the long (...) Sparks Street
Mall 
Tomorrow we will give ourselves a break. Isn't that what vacation was all about to start with? I will visit the Museum of science with Erik. Suzan will do some shop till you drop in the local MALL..... Every one will get what he deserves, eh?