Ottawa

The nations capital.. Once again we had no idea what to expect in ottawa but as the nations capital we were kind of expecting Canberra! However, we were impressed with the beautiful city and wish we were able to spend a little longer!

After checking into our eery hostel which was built in the old city jail (more on that later) we explored the near by markets, had yet another good coffee and then headed to the Canadian mint, home to the design and production house of collectors coins and bullion. We took a tour of the mint and learns about how the coins were designed and made which was pretty cool! The mint had also produced all the medals for the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics and there was a $1 million dollar coin (whose current value was about $6M!) the mint had only made 5 of these coins, 2 belonged to anonymous collectors, one was in a museum somewhere, one in the mint and one to a very rich sheik in the UAE who apparently used the coin as his coffee table!! 

After our tour of the mint and holding a gold bar (which is actually a lot heavier than expected!) we wandered back to the hostel along the water side and found a beautiful view of parliament hill, the parliament buildings and the lock. We could see across the river to Quebec but in comparison to the beautiful views of ottawa, the industrial buildings and view across Quebec were more than unappealing! 

The hostel ran daily tours of the jail where we were treated to an insite of the very inhumane way the previous tenants of the old building had been treated. There were multiple '(private') hangings, little food and a lot of little nooks and crannies where prisoners were sent (for hours to months on end) to be further punished.

After the jail tour we did something a little more enlightening and went to visit parliament hill and the beautiful parliament buildings of the capital. We took a tour through the building and visited to (sitting rooms?), foyers, the tower look out and beautiful double story library. We learned that a fire during the war with America had burned all the buildings to the ground but the library, which had been saved by a quick thinking senator who shut the big iron doors and stopped the fire entering the building. 

For something different we went to a comedy show on our last night which was quite funny and a great  way to end a good few days in ottawa!