I wrote a post earlier this week telling you all about my trip to Ottawa last week, during my trip i delivered Learning Tree course 2105 SQL Server 2012 DBA Skill Upgrade. I also got to spend the weekend following the course in Ottawa. Taking in some of the sites and also checking out a few patios in Byward Market

I was staying in Lord Elgin Hotel on Elgin street which is pretty much slap bang in the middle of downtown Ottawa. I had suffered a little with jet lag and I never really got into a proper sleeping routine so at the end of class on Friday I simply had dinner and a couple of drinks and had another early night.

I was up bright and early on Saturday morning though and I had a chat with the guys on the bell counter at the Elgin about what to do and visit. I was advised that the bars didn’t open until 11am so I couldn’t get a beer yet!!! Not sure if they were trying to tell me something but there were some cool things to see. The Parliament of Canada was only a couple of blocks away and with  the Queens Diamond Jubilee weekend fast approaching I was keen to go and see what the Canadians were going to do to celebrate.

I walked up the street towards parliament passing the war memorial on my way parliament

Just up the street as you turn a corner you are presented with the Canadian parliament building, which is a pretty spectacular building

I was struck just how similar it looks to the Houses Of Parliament in the UK. Maybe the Peace tower helps make this look similar but you can actually walk right up to the front door if you want. They actually put on free tours of the Parliament building and you can go inside for a look. So I did. I had to pass the Queen on horse back to go and collect my ticket

Inside it also looks very similar to the UK Parliament. The Canadian parliament has a House of Commons just like the UK parliament and a Senate which is similar to the House of Lords (in both colour styling and in the fact that neither senators in Canada or Lords in the UK are elected members)  but with 308 MPs and 101 Senators they are fewer in number than the UK equivalent.

The cool thing with this building is you can actually take an elevator to the top of the Peace tower, this is Canada’s first inclined elevator, with a 9% incline. The lift has a window and you can see the wall getting closer and closer to you as you go up. From the top you can see both Quebec and Ontario

I finished my Saturday with walk up Sussex Street I had a meal in a pub called the Heart and Crown in Byward Market. There is a lot of bars pubs and restaurants in Byward Market so many it would have been impossible for me to visit them all on the same day

I was up early again on Sunday morning, I flew home Sunday but my flight wasn’t until late in the evening. The weekend was also Ottawa’s famous marathon race weekend. Saturday night saw the 5K and 10K events take place and Sunday was the start of the Marathon. This is the runners the start. These guys still have 26+ miles to go it was nice and earlier 6.55am local time so the heat and humidity had not yet kicked in.

All in all I really enjoyed my visit to Canada’s capital city.