Sunday July 16 – Toronto to Ottawa

We began the day with a short sight-seeing tour of the city area of Toronto, past old city hall, then on to new city hall. The architecture has a round curved roof, with two curved structures – one each side. From above it looks like an eye, and is known as the ‘eye of the city’.

Nathan Phillips Square was once a slum area, and was demolished in order to clean up the city. It is now a park with fountain that is used constantly for events and exhibitions. There was an art exhibition as we went past.

The 'eye' is the flat round building with the lashes being the curved office buildings either side

Part of the parliament building

Some advertising along 401 is very pretty, and made with flowers!

Freight trains here are double-decker. Obviously the bridges are high enough for it to fit under!

We travelled on Route 401, stopping for half an hour at Big Apple for toilet and food break. We had a hot chocolate and discovered it was made on chocolate topping. It was like a hot milkshake and very sweet. Next time we’ll ask how it’s made before ordering! Gary (Tour Director) bought enough Maple Ice Wine biscuits for us to have one each. It was like our Custard Creams in some ways, but much sweeter. Quite nice though.

Gary talked a lot, to make the long drive more interesting. He told us that female reindeer keep their antlers all year long, not losing them in winter like the males do. Soooooo ………. Santa’s Rudolf has to be a girl!!! Gary also regaled us with stories about his mother – so funny. She is gone now, but was mother to five boys, and he had many stories – some of when she was in an aged care facility.

We stopped at Kingston for lunch. There was some sort of event on, and roads were closed. Seems the firemen of various stations were having ‘games’ and included one lot of very burly blokes dressed in black singlets and purple tutus. We didn’t stay to watch their races etc, but heard much cheering in the distance as we walked around. 

There was a collectables market too, which we wandered around. There used to be a fort here – Henry Fort – and a few towers are the only things surviving from that time.

Collectables market on left

Near a historic house.

Elizabeth House

Back on the bus we heard many more stories, and had a quiz, to see how much the group had retained of information Gary told us. Seems we are good listeners because he was struggling to come up with questions to ask us. We also watched a DVD on the Royal Mounted Police Musical Show - the horses and riders 'dancing' in formation to music.

screen shot of the DVD

We passed into the 1000 Islands area (where 1000 Island dressing came from) and marvelled at how people could build houses on such tiny islands. Mike, our bus driver, took us over the bridge and into America (but not through the border) to see the islands more clearly from the bridge. There are over 1000 islands, some of which are actually in America. The rules are that to build a house, the house must be able to sit a metre above water at all times of the year.

The date is all done in flowers - in separate punnets so that it can be changed each day!

Arriving in Ottawa we had a bit of a look-see on the way to the hotel (the Fairmont Chateau Laurier). Ottawa is the capital of Canada. Over the last 150 years and more the capital has changed a number of times. Queen Victoria chose Ottawa, away from the river and lakes, because the Americans would not be able to attack unannounced! It has remained the capital, even though it is smaller than other cities in Canada.

Above and below - food market where you can get all sorts of things. We bought punnets of beautiful fresh (and ripe!) mixed berries.

 

Mirrored finish on this building reflects the buildings around it

Our bus

We found a nice (and busy!) Thai place to have dinner. We had a satay appetiser and a chicken green curry and steamed rice, both of which we shared between us, and it was delicious!

Gary had told us this morning that if we wanted a treat we were to meet him in the foyer at 9.45pm, with a blanket. House-keeping was near our room so we asked for a blanket each and they were duly delivered while we were out. So, blankets in arms, we went out into light rain! (Didn’t know it was raining!) Turns out we went to see a light show (half-hour long) projected onto the walls of Parliament House, celebrating Canada’s 150^th anniversary and the history over those years. It was very well done and most informative. The rain stopped but the blankets, which we sat on, were damp. We had them spread over chairs to dry out overnight! There were police around, some with sub-machine guns. A sign of the times, unfortunately.