Ottawa and it's surroundings offer so much, that you can easily spend more than one week just to visit and explore the most famous places.
Get a complete actual package of information when you arrive in Ottawa.
We do not provide any longer links to any other web sites of organizations or attractions. The addresses changed too often and nobody informed us about such changes.
Ottawa has also many good restaurants. I am addicted to ethnic places and Ottawa as Canada's capital offers a variety of those.
You should have no problems to find a suitable accommodation.
If you want to be active many things are offered. Boating, hiking, biking, golfing, winter sports and much more.
Visit also the surroundings. Enjoy in fall the our forests when the leaves change color. Many visitors come just to enjoy that.
We recommend to visit the "Gatineau Park" if you want to become active.

When we visited Ottawa and had bad weather we could have visited some of the very interesting museums. But we did not do this because we were told that I would not be allowed to take any pictures. This information was wrong.
Only in a few places restrictions apply. These places are the "National Gallery of Canada" und der "Royal Canadian Mint". Ask for more details if you want to take images or a video home. Copyright and security are the understandable reasons for the limitations.

This museum will be one of the highlights of our sightseeing program in Ottawa. It has permanent exhibitions and special exhibitions. It is not only focused on Canada. Certain events are an additional attraction to us.
Whenever we have a chance we will visit this place.
Another interesting place for me to see will be the so called "Diefenbunker". This refuge for politicians and military leaders and their staff was built during the cold war to allow survival for a limited time in case of a nuclear war. Luckily there was never any need to use it. I am confident that many industrialized countries had similar installations.
Book a guided tour! Reservations are recommended.
If you want to learn more about the military history of Canada visit the "Canadian War Museum" and the "Canada Aviation Museum". My father in law would have enjoyed that. He was always a good travel companion. We visited several military museums in our area and he loved to see all the equipment and to talk to other veterans who worked there as volunteers. Such a visit made always his day.
I would love to spend some hours in the "Canada Aviation Museum" because I worked for many years as an engineer in the aerospace industry. I am especially interested in the "Avro Arrow", a superior delta winged aircraft which was developed in Canada. I certainly will not find out the real reasons why this program was stopped. Cost overrun alone and the change of defense strategies does not sound true to me. Many projects exceed the estimated costs and other countries still kept developing high sophisticated aircrafts, despite the missiles available for defense or attack.

If you are more interested in peaceful things, explore Ottawa and you will find some realty idyllic spots. That is what Elizabeth and I love appreciated also. During holidays I try to stay away from bustling and noisy places.
We never have visited the "ByWard Market". This seems to be a busy place which offers many interesting shops and businesses, including restaurants, events, exhibitions and even night life. Elizabeth is born to shop, without having the required spending money - but certainly she would prefer this market to a museum with military equipment and related to war.
It is up to you what you want to see and to do.

Elizabeth is an animal lover. She also loves plants. You should see our garden in downtown Welland. It is a little paradise. Every visitor loves it, including the "Japanese Beetles" which do their best to destroy all of Elizabeth's work. Even talking to the plants will not heal them, so she started to attack this pest with all kind of environmental friendly weapons.
After having visited in Newfoundland the "Johnson Geo Centre" in St. John's she is also excited about learning more about geology. I am sure that she can easily spend a whole day in the "Museum of Nature". Naturally. I am also interested but depending of the available time which we can spend in Ottawa, we may have to split after a few hours and I visit all the technical museums alone. We did this kind of "work sharing" several times during our trips to Newfoundland-Labrador and Thuringia in Germany. We began to do this also in Ontario. Our web site for "Canal Days" in Port Colborne is one example. Based on what we experienced I prepare the respective web sites. Unfortunately, our full travel guide for Newfoundland-Labrador is only available in German. But I added a slideshow and a brief English site because of the response we received.
Our web sites are not intended to replace an actual visit, we just want to motivate you to come to our country or in this case to the province of Ontario

To take pictures in the "National Gallery of Canada" is very restricted. This is understandable.
Everybody interested in art should visit it. Certainly a tour through this museum requires lots of walking which is a pain for me.
I have my doubts that I will be allowed to have a rest on this shown couch. I assume that a visit to this place would also be subject for "work sharing".

Terry Fox is a national hero and I agree that he deserves this title. He was born in 1958 and always loved sport. After an accident bone cancer was diagnosed in his right knee. For that reason his right leg had to be amputated.
This did not discourage Terry Fox. He started an initiative to help in the fight against cancer by announcing a marathon from the east cost to the west coast of Canada to raise money. for this purpose.
He started this run with a prosthesis in 1980.
Unfortunately the cancer had spread to his lungs and Terry Fox had to quit his run after 5373 km in Thunderbay, Ontario.
Terry Fox died in 1981. Because of his heroic run millions of dollars were pledged to support cancer research. He will always be remembered.

Sport is one of the main activities in Canada. You can see this also in Ottawa. Even the harsh winter will not keep people way from enjoying the outdoors.

This event looks very interesting. I do not know any details. That will be surprise for both of us when we visit Ottawa again.