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Well it was always going to be a busy day in Ottawa today trying to get around all the major sites that the city has to offer and it certainly was. It could have been a better day weather wise as the sky was almost completely white and it could not decide between rain or sun so we ended up going out in our winter coats and by midday we were sweltering.

So back to the sites of Ottawa, we decided to walk to the furthest away point then walk our way back into the city.

Furthest away point was the Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General of Canada. Now being the Governor General is a very sweet job especially here in Canada. You get a big swanky house complete with guards in the traditional red jacket livery with black trousers and the horse hair hats that

would not look out of place in Priscilla Queen of the Desert. For all of this all you have to do is open parliament, attended some posh dinners and plant a few trees and open a few supermarkets. Sounds great to me.

In all seriousness the Rideau Hall was very impressive. Like I said half joking the hall itself is guarded by the traditional guards as in horse guards parade in London and their uniforms are different but in reality they do look the same. The grounds to the park were immense and planted in a very traditional way. There were trees planted in the grounds by world leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher. The building itself was another bath stone look a like or cream and pale with the doric columns that you come to expect of this kind of building.

Just across the road for the Rideau Hall is the prime ministers residence but to be honest you could not really gauge the style or the size of this building as it was so heavily protected by fences and trees and there were perimeter cameras everywhere.

Our next port of cal was the Rideau Falls. Ottawa has three main waterways that flow through it and two are waterways like the canals of Europe. The city itself actually sits higher that the river level thus as the Rideau River meets the Ottawa River it falls.

Now these falls generate hydro electricity and they have done this for quite some age but the falls themselves we felt were less than impressive. For a start we have been spoilt now with fantastically grand waterfalls in both Iceland and Canada so these city falls did not cut the mustard. On top of that they were actually very brown and soapy so it made you wonder what was actually flowing in all of that water....there was no apparent smell or anything like that but lets just say that the colour of the water was far from attractive.

Continuing our journey we passed the incredibly beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral. No, not the one in Paris (obviously) with all the butresses and a infamous hunchback but a shining chateau inspired silver clad cathedral whose roof and spires seemed to glow silver in colour.

Now Ottawa was not always called Ottawa it used to be called Byward.When Canada united, Queen Victoria had to become involved as the two sides of Canada could not decided where the capital should be, both wanting a city in their own existing areas. The Queen chose Byward or Ottawa as it is known now. The city itself now is full of government buildings all grand chateau type architecture built of solid stone with copper roofs. You can really see a lot of Europe in the architecture with Parliament square having its own version of Big Ben and many other building looking like they were picked up off of the banks of The Seine in Paris and dropped down here. The whole thing put together is very impressive and grand. Ottawa has its fair share of glass towers but to be honest these are few and far outnumbered by the number of historic buildings which again is why the city feels so European.

So before Ottawa came into existence and it was called Byward it was an important trading post due to the number of waterways that flowed through the city. Our next stop was the Byward Market area where all the traders would originally meet to sell and swap their wares. Today the Market area stretches for some six blocks and is full of bars and eateries and trendy clothing stores. It's a great area with a real buzz about it. We stopped for lunch at one of the traders and sat at a table out on the street soaking in the atmosphere and people watching.

Fed and rested our next stop was the amazing lock gates of the Rideau Canal. Now as I have already said the city itself sits a lot higher than the level of the Ottawa River and those early traders needed to find a way to get all of there good up into the Byward Market and the city so they built seven locks that would slowly carry boats up to the city level.

These locks are still here and working today (manually operated by chain and link) and are incredibly impressive. Some of these lock gates carry boats over 10m in height up to the next gate but it is a very long process and the men that were operating all the gates must be incredibly healthy!

The other thing that you notice here in Ottawa is how immensely proud it is of its war fallen as there are a lot of war memorials dotted around the city all very impressive. Just by our hotel there are two massive buildings that house the administration teams that look after war veterans and retrain them and find them work when they leave the armed forces. The two buildings are connected by a bridge that spans the road below and is inscribed with words praising and honouring those that have fought for Canada in the war.

We had been walking for a good six hours now so it was time to rest our feet and get some down tim back in the hotel before dinner. Of course that did not happen as Trevor went to the lovely indoor pool at the hotel for some exercise whilst Jonathan went off to the gym.

Exercise complete we headed back down to the Byward market area and had dinner in one of those all you can eat buffet houses. The food and selection was actually really good and we could not complain about value for money at all. To end the night we went to a quiet bar up town and Trevor finally got to sample some Canadian whiskey although I think that he will be keeping to the scotch from now on.

Now that was a busy day !

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