A beautiful day playing tourist in our hometown

Although we've been back to our hometown area of Canada's capital city of Ottawa many times in the last five years, we can't remember the last time we actually went downtown. So with Igor tied up at the mechanical shop, we decided to head to the center of the city and see the typical tourist sites.

And, the last day of September was a gorgeous fall day.

We found free street parking just north of Landsdowne Park and walked north along the Rideau Canal.

Ottawa's Rideau Canal.

The Rideau Canal is drained every October and usually becomes the world's longest skating rink in the winter. Of course the warming climate has meant that doesn't happen every year now, and even when it does, it's only for a few short weeks in January and early February. When we were kids, it was a popular winter activity to go skating on the canal when the skating season would last almost three months.

Ruth, at the Fins to Feathers stair paintings.

Looking across the canal to the other stair painting.

Zoomed in.

Ottawa's Chateau Laurier Hotel.

The roof of the hotel (and the nearby parliament buildings) is made of copper.

The copper roof was replaced several years ago, and is only just starting to turn green.

The east block of the Parliament Buildings.

You can see what the copper roof will eventually look like.

The War Memorial.

The Center Block of the Parliament Buildings.

The Center Block is undergoing a major renovation. It is the largest and most complex heritage building restoration ever seen in Canada. They estimate the cost to be between $4.5 billion and $5 billion CAD. And of course we all know it will end up being much higher than that. But, it has to be done. The targeted completion date is between 2030 and 2031.

The Centennial Flame.

The Centennial Flame is a monument on Parliament Hill commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation. First lit in January 1967, the Flame worked with natural gas and as of 2021 uses biogas, presenting a fountain that does not freeze in winter.

One of the last boats to go up the Rideau Canal locks this year. 

The locks close for the season on October 14th.

From there, we walked over to Ottawa's Byward Market. The market area has gone downhill since the beginning of Covid with the lack of downtown workers, and I had read a lot of reports recently about vagrants and homeless people harassing tourists and making it a generally unsafe area. So we went into it with low expectations. Yes, we saw quite a few of the down and outers, but it wasn't as bad as I expected.

Totem pole in the Byward Market.

It sure wasn't very busy around the noon hour.

It used to be a bustling place.

The Irving Rivers store has been there as long as we can remember.

I just looked it up... it's been there since 1951.

We were looking for somewhere to have lunch. But man, it's tough to find anywhere in downtown Ottawa to have something decent to eat for under $14 CAD ($10.35 USD), and then you would have to include tax and possibly tip on top of that. However, I did some research and came across a place called Chef Ric's on Rideau Street. It's a program done by the Ottawa Mission where they train people  to work in the restaurant industry. They do a daily lunch special for $6.99 CAD 

Chicken breast and bacon on a bun with home fries and a small salad.

Ruth had a big salad for $4.99.

So, total price for the two of us was $11.98 CAD ($8.86 USD). Yes, Ottawa is expensive, but there are bargains to be had if you look for them!

From there, we went over to Ottawa's St. Patrick Cathedral. It has undergone a recent restoration, and the interior is quite spectacular...

Ottawa's St. Patrick Cathedral.

Fancy!

Organ pipes and stained glass.

Opposite the church is Canada's National Gallery. We're not interested in going in, however they do have an interesting piece of "art" on display outside...

Me, and Ottawa's giant spider at the National Gallery.

And, looking back at the Cathedral.

We walked past the fortress style US Embassy.

And we looked across to the Museum of Civilization on the Quebec side of the river.

We had our laptops with us, and figured we would go waste an hour or two at Ottawa's downtown Public Library. Around this time, we received a private message through our facebook page asking "do you have somewhere to stay tonight?" 

We had been hoping to get back to Igor Monday night, but if he was under repairs inside the shop, that wouldn't be possible. So we hadn't made any plans yet.

Well, it turns out that blog reader Glynda lives in downtown Ottawa. And, that she's originally from Cabri, Saskatchewan where we ran the regional park for four years between 2014-2017! And her apartment is only a five minute walk from the downtown library! So we walked over to say hi, even though we weren't sure we were going to stay the night.

It turns out that we did. She has a spare bedroom with private bathroom. Only problem was that we didn't have any of our things with us, and it didn't make sense to drive all the way back to Igor to pick things up and all the way back downtown again. But, she had toothbrushes and toothpaste, and towels for a shower in the morning. So what if we had to put the same clothes on again. Not the first time we've had to do that!

Cafe by the water.

I walked back over to the car and moved it to a street closer to the apartment.

Ruth and Glynda put together a nice meal for us, and we had some good conversation in the evening.

This morning, I have already learned that Igor is ready and waiting for us. So we are headed over there to pick him and, and we'll do some grocery shopping and stock up the fridge before heading over to visit with my mother.

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