Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Part I

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Part I

Getting into Canada is easy. It took us about 15 minutes to drive up and show our passports and go on into Ontario, Canada from New York state. Getting out of Canada is another story entirely. It took us over an hour to wait in a long, long traffic line in our car to approach the border crossing in Quebec, Canada to show our passports, explain why we were in Canada and then drive on into Vermont. How slow was it getting back into the United States? People were jumping out of cars and using the border restrooms and still just walking casually back to their vehicles that were still sitting in a long line. Once we did enter Canada we stopped at the exchange center and exchanged American dollars for Canadian dollars.

Parliament Hill in Ottawa is the number 1 thing to see in Canada's capitol city. It consists of three huge buildings like the one above plus a parade ground for changing of the guard. I liked the massive Gothic architecture and green copper roofs on these buildings.

Statue to Canadian hero, Mr. Laurier, who also has a hotel in Ottawa named after him: Hotel Chateau Laurier.

Canada's Eternal Flame Monument on Parliament Hill honors the creation of Canada as a confederation of provinces and territories. How many provinces in Canada? Just ten although Canada is the second largest country in the world and has more shoreline of any country in the world. Here are the names of Canada's ten provinces in the order they entered the Canadian Confederation that began in 1867: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the combined Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. How many territories in Canada? There are just three territories and they are: The Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut.


During June, July and August the center building on Parliament Hill is used as a projection screen for an amazing sound and light show about the history of Canada. So summer is a great time to visit in order to take in this free sound and light show.

This is the central tower of the center building on Parliament Hill with its gargoyles at the top.

Yes, they do wear kilts in Ontario, Canada.

The 10:00 A.M. changing of the guard each summer morning on Parliament Hill draws lots of tourists. This ceremony comes complete with men in black beaver hats and men in kilts and bagpipers piping mournful marching songs.

Of course, Jack and I started off our second sunny day in Ottawa by observing the changing of the guard. Tomorrow I'll tell you about our wild open air Grey Line Tour Ride which we took and proceeded to almost lose our hats!

Have a good Friday, everyone.