Playing Tourist

My mother's youngest sister was up visiting her son and his wife and when I got back from my camping trip, a friend was on her vacation so I was able to get together with each of them and played tourist in my home town. I live on the east end of Ottawa so don't often go downtown and right now there's so much constriction on the new light rail system that there are often road closures that make things difficult to get downtown. 

My aunt and I just went down to the Byward Market and walked around as she wanted to do some shopping for her new granddaughter and some of her friends back home. We had lunch together and then walked up to Parliament Hill, the Sparks Street Mall, and down to the basilica.

Rideau canal locks

My friend and I made arrangements to go to lunch at the Tavern at the Gallery and then to go to the National Art Gallery. The Tavern on the Gallery is a seasonal restaurant that just opened this year. It's seasonal since it is outdoors in a sunken garden beside the art gallery.  We had a wonderful wood fired pear and prosciutto pizza.

Maman outside the National Gallery

Tavern at the Gallery

Pizza and Sangria

After lunch, we spent a good few hours exploring the gallery. I think you'd have to go many times before you'd really know your way around or before you'd see everything. 

My favourite part of the museum is the Rideau Chapel. It is a reconstructed chapel from a boarding school that used to be in the area. It's wonderful that they didn't just let it be destroyed. But what's even more wonderful is the 40 Part Motet that is playing in the chapel. You can just sit and listen but the neatest thing is to go to each speaker and listen to the individual voices.  

I hope you enjoy listening to just a small portion of this forty part vocal harmony.  

I enjoyed playing tourist, I need to do it more often, Ottawa is such a wonderful city.  

Chris De Burgh Concert

I went to a concert this past week. It was the first really big event that I've gone where I didn't wear a mask; we'll see how that works out. 

My friend and I went out to dinner before the concert. We had a nice meal with a couple glasses of wine. Our reservations had us at the restaurant during Happy Hour so many drinks were only $6, as well on Wednesday's all of the burgers were only $14. 

We thought we had plenty of time, so we leisurely headed over to the nearby venue only to realize we were at the wrong concert location. So began the race across town; luckily, we had prepaid for parking. We were a bit late; the concert had already started but we weren't the only ones that were late, and I think we only missed the opening song. 

Chris de Burgh Concert Video

I'd seen Chris de Burgh in concert before many years ago; his stage show has gotten more techno than I recall. He also either had a cold or is having some difficulty reaching the high notes of some of his songs but at 74 years old he still is a good singer and storyteller. 

It was a good evening despite the road race to get to the concert. Next time I'll check to make sure I have the right venue. 

Silent Sunday - Celebration and Memorial

 

National Arts Centre

Parliament Hill Tribute

Eternal Flame

Platinum Jubilee Banners

Platinum Jubilee Retrospective 

Platinum Jubilee Retrospective 

Floral Tributes British High Commission

To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of our happy memory, rest in peace. You served us well. 

Going Downtown!

With so many activities still restricted I try to think of places to go with the dogs that are a different from the normal places we walk so twice recently I took them downtown. It's about a twenty minute drive and then you have to find parking but usually the walks are well worth it. 

The first time we went downtown we wanted to find the statue of LCol John McCrae who wrote In Flanders Fields. This location isn't actually right in the downtown core so I had never walked this area before, there's not much public parking on weekdays in the area or not that many tourist attractions either so not as many people around. I'd only ever been to that area once before. John McCrae's statue is across the road from the building that was once Ottawa's city hall; it now houses the School of the Public Service and I had been there on a course. 

John McCrae's statue is in a small park near a memorial to the fallen of the Royal Canadian Artillery. The park is right on the Rideau River and you can see the falls from one side of the park and even walk over pedestrian bridge over the falls.

On the other side of the road and around the back of the School of Public Service I found a bridge that led across the river to another park on Maple Island.  

The building on the left behind the bridge is Global Affairs Canada and the pyramid shape is the part of the roof line of the School of Public Service.  The white bridge is the one we walked over to get to this little park. It's only a one lane bridge for cars so they have to take turns with a pedestrian walkway on one side.

Above was a statue I found on the island suitably called Flight. Sadly as I walked around this area I found two encampments. It's probably not uncommon in most large cities but I had never seen any in Ottawa before. 

The next time we went downtown for a walk, it was to take the dogs to the Animals In War Memorial. I took Beckett and Keltic down on the day that the memorial was dedicated and one of the reporters said to me that they hadn't expected so many people to show up with their animals. It also was a good experience for both Teddy and Liam to be around so much hustle and bustle as we walked around the downtown core. The Animals in War Memorial is in Confederation Park as is the Indigenous Veterans Memorial. Initially Liam barked and barked at the dog statue while Teddy usually the reactive dog is like what's your problem. Once Liam figured things out we got a few photos of them with the war dog statue. 

We then walked up to Parliament Hill then over to the temporary Senate where the  Women are Persons statutes are currently located, then down to the canal locks and finally around the Chateau Laurier hotel to Major's Hill Park. This was the first time in all the years I've been in Ottawa that I had gone up to Major's Hill Park.  I was tired when we got home but I don't think Liam and Teddy were.

National War Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Eternal Flame on Parliament Hill

The canal locks looking toward the Chateau Laurier

Parliament Hill from walkway around the Chateau Laurier

Statue to John By in Major's Hill Park

Rideau Canal

We had a nice time exploring our city on both of our outings. Sometimes it's nice to be a tourist in your home town so if you haven't been in awhile maybe you should go downtown in your home town. You might be surprised with things you didn't notice before.

Mini Walktober Walks

 Well, it's Walktober, one thing we can do in a pandemic is go for a nice walk. I planned three walks, none of which turned out as planned but it was still nice to get out.

Facebook reminded me of past walks by the Ottawa river ahead of our Thanksgiving weekend so I decided to do that again. Since adding Liam to the pack, I can no longer take all three dogs to the federal government owned lands administered by the National Capital Commission. NCC regulations only allow each person to walk a maximum of two dogs so I decided to go to a boat launch that has a trail by the river.  There's a an old boat on the shoreline, I'm sure it's located on private property. I thought it would be a good place for some pictures; but since this really isn't a public trail, I found it had been overgrown and I decided I wasn't going to try and wrangle three dogs through the brush to get there so we turned back. Even had we made it to the boat, we would have had to turn around as the trail just follows the river's edge.

On the Ottawa river.

The boys leading the way.

The trail

Looking down to the boat launch.

Our next walk was on Thanksgiving Monday, we went to do the Wilsondale trails. They are trails maintained by the city of Ottawa and are in behind the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum. We started out to do some of those trails but even though it was a bright sunny day, the trail was wet and muddy.  I don't think we had even gone halfway and it was just too muddy so again I headed back.  We did walk the museum property instead. The museum doesn't permit dogs when it's open but once it's closed they don't seem to mind. I've walked the dogs there a number of times even in the winter as the roads are kept plowed. 

On the Wilsondale trail

Heritage Village Museum

Barn in the Heritage Village

Tractor and fall colours

Another barn

Old gas station

My last Walktober walk was just yesterday. I had thought to go downtown Ottawa to take a picture of the statue of the Famous Five statue as today is Persons Day in Canada. I took just Keltic and Liam with me. We walked all around the Parliament buildings, down to the canal, over to the War Memorial and down the Sparks street mall but we didn't see the statues. Turns out because the restoration work has started on the Parliament buildings that many of the statues have been moved. The restoration work will take the next ten years.  The Famous Five statue has been moved to the front of the building being used as the temporary Senate, it will be a government conference centre once all the renovations are done. 

Statue to the War of 1812

View of the Ottawa River and Gatineau from behind Parliament

Eternal Flame and the Peace Tower

Keltic and Liam on the Rideau Canal

Rideau Canal Locks

Keltic at the War Memorial

Liam - downtown Ottawa

So while none of walks turned out as planned, they got us out of the house to enjoy some beautiful fall days.  Hopefully, there will be more nice days ahead as I have leaves to rake.