It was very chilly when we walked up the hill to catch the hop on hop off bus this morning. We got on the bus & found a sunny spot upstairs. Soon after the tour guide came up to talk to us & said it was 0 degrees that morning. It certainly felt like it when the bus took off.

The guide was a very animated Frenchman who used his hands to talk. He had to repeat everything he said in French which meant he had to talk very quickly at times.

Ottawa is considered a young city as it was founded in 1826. It was originally called Bytown until 1855 when the name was changed to Ottawa. The city sits on the south bank of the Ottawa River directly opposite Gatineau, Quebec. Ottawa became the capital of Canada in 1857 after 17yrs of indecision. Queen Victoria made the final decision.

The Rideau Canal runs through Ottawa. It is a man made canal which was built in 1826 - 1832. The canal was built because the Canadians suspected the Americans were going to attack them & that would have occurred closer to the American border cutting off waterways Canadians used for trade. The attack never happened.

Ottawa is full of beautiful architecture. There is lots of the gothic revival such as the parliament buildings, French chateau style and the modern buildings housing the galleries and museums. We got to see many examples from the bus.

We had intended to do a full loop of the bus & then decide where to hop off. We just got too cold so got off at the Notre-Dame cathedral. The doors were locked even though the sign indicated they would open at 10am. So we walked along the road to see what some of the other buildings were. We saw the American embassy & the tax office which was housed in a castle. Across the road was the Bytown Markets. We walked down there & bought scarves and maple syrup from the stalls. There were lots of fresh produce stalls that had the most delicious looking carrots, berries, zucchinis, huge tomatoes and other things. We bought a bowl of raspberries, strawberries & blackberries for $5. We also saw some things called ground cherries. They appeared to have a paper like wrapper around a small round berry. We were able to taste them. They were yellow & looked more like a grape than a cherry. They were ok tasting. Another shop was selling something called Beavertails. These were a long pastry covered in sugar & cinnamon. They were delicious!!!

After the markets we walked down to the Canadian Mint and found a tour was leaving in 15mins. It was a very interesting tour. The Ottawa Mint only produces investor & collector coins now. The coins in circulation are made in Winnipeg. We saw rolls of silver & gold which had been melted down & then rolled to prepare for coins being made. Each roll of gold is worth $18-$20mil each. There were 8 or 9 rolls there. The Mint produced the medals for the Olympic Games & they had one of each from the Vancouver Games on display. It was cool to see them. In 2007 the Mint produced a $1mil coin weighing in at 100kgs. They sold for $2.7mil each. Only 5 were made. One is in the vault at the Mint & the others were bought by private investors. One is on display in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto but we didn't get there. We saw the moulds for the coins - they were huge. This was the biggest coin in the world until earlier this year when the Perth Mint made a coin weighing 1 tonne. It is valued at over $50mil and features a red kangaroo.

We hopped back on the bus and finished the loop. Once back at the beginning, we decided to go on a cruise. There was one of the Ottawa River leaving in half an hour so we got on. It cruised around for 1.5hrs & a guide told us about the points of interest. She also had to repeat everything in French.

We got off the boat at 5.30pm & headed up to Parliament Hill where the military ceremony was about to start. There were a lot more people there tonight & we weren't allowed on the bleachers. We watched for a while but decided to walk back down to the market area where the tour guide told us there were 199 restaurants. We found one that looked nice so went in. It turned out to be a buffet & had everything you could have hoped for.

After dinner we came back to the hotel to do some washing before we head to Quebec City via Montreal in the morning.