Where Are We Today?

Driving from Ottawa to Toronto

Route

Our GPS was programmed with “avoid tolls”, and so it took from Ottawa towards Kingston, and then along the shore of the St Laurence river and Lake Ontario to Toronto.

Traffic

Traffic was quite light until we got to Kingston and stopped for a lunch and stretch the legs break. From Kingston to Toronto, however, traffic was moving at 30 to 80 km/h, as more and more holidaymakers started to head home.

Travellers Tips

We neglected to check what public holidays, if any, our travel happened to coincide with. Lesson from this:

Always check dates of public/statutory holidays. Traffic will be much worse at the start and the end of these, so if like us, you get caught in the stream of people driving back home after a  long weekend, you will need to put up with a lot more traffic and a lot of frustrated and tired drivers who do not do ling distance driving often.

Ottawa? Why Ottawa?

As some of you might well know I have a younger brother who has been living in Canada.  He is a any of very few words, so I when the invitation to his wedding came earlier this year, I was very happy, as it ended up dove-tailing quite neatly with the rest of the grand tour.

Sights of Ottawa

Ottawa is a modern growing city and an odd an unusual mixture architecture. Some of it is very pretty, being a mix of the typical Canadian (neo-gothic in flavour) style form the mid 1800 and early 1900, some of is nicely designed modern building that blend in well with the older houses and edifices, and and some of it rather ugly and late 1970’s and 1980’s utilitarian. Having said all that the walk along the river  was a most interesting and pleasant experience.

Here are some examples, of what I mean:

Center Block, Candian Parliment Ottawa
Mixture of new and old architecture	Historic Locks on Riedau Canal

Panorama from the Parliament Hill

This 3 part panorama shows part of  Gatinaeu, the Ottawa River, and the National Gallery building on the east side of the Rideau Canal. Along with the above photos. it illustrates the green nature of the city and the mixed and varied style of architecture.

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