July 22-24 (Capital City of Ottawa)

I realize it's been a while since I've posted but there was so much to see in Ottawa!

Our room at the Days Inn Downtown in Ottawa was perfectly located! We were able to park the bikes and do what we like to do best – walk around and sightsee. We were just a 15 minute walk from Parliament Hill, the ByWard Market plus hundreds of shops & restaurants. We use a citywide Hop On/Hop Off tour bus to get to the exhibits and sites that were further away. Plus we also took a river cruise tour of the Ottawa River & locks.

I have to tell you that the Canada Aviation and Space Museum was one of the best we’ve visited and believe me when I tell you that we’ve see quite a few in our travels. The museum has several planes on exhibit that are either the only surviving model or are one of only two left in the world.

The Canadian War Museum has a fairly extensive collection of tanks and howitzers located in the downstairs exhibit hall. There are four galleries covering different time slices. We spent approx. 3 hours here and did our best but still did not see it all.

There is also a very good collection of "nose art" from planes of WWII era. The other collection we've seen was in Midland Texas.

There is still a very traditional Changing of the Guard ceremony at the Parliament that occurs every morning that we did not actually get to see since we were busy touring other sights. However, we did go back later evening at 9:00 to watch the official end-of-day and flag lowering ceremonies. There was a delegation of German soldiers and bag pipers, on temporary assignment that also participated in the ceremonies.

proof we're still travelling together

the German contingent

In recognition of the security risks this large of a crowd presents at this daily activity, there was a very large contingent of both police and soldiers walking around. They were all nice and willing to talk/answer questions but were definitely on alert while doing so.

Later that evening while watching the news, I learn the other reason for the larger than usual police presence is that the Canadian Hell’s Angels biker organization has come to town for their 4-year reunion. The meeting is mandatory for all Canadian Chapters and on Saturday they are all well-represented as are the police. I swear the police number quadrupled overnight. We rode out of town early the next day with the group from Manitoba.

Here are additional pictures that record our three days wandering around this busy city…binge on!