Canada Day in Canada's Capital City

We have reached Ottawa at around 8-9 pm last night, which wasn't too bad. We are staying over at our family's house until tomorrow, where we'll be leaving for Montreal together. It was very nice of them to take a day off and offer to show us around in Montreal.

Today, for Canada Day, we left the house, in Gatineau at around 8 am after having breakfast. Canada Day is basically celebrating Canada's birthday, after July 1st 1867 happened and Canada officially became a nation. It was a great idea to come to the Capital to celebrate this, since it's the biggest birthday party in all of Canada. The celebrations are at three sites in Ottawa/Gatineau; Parliament Hill, Major's Hill Park and Jacques-Cartier Park.

The crowd at the Parliament

We went to Jacques-Cartier park first, since it was in Gatineau. Then it took us about a five minutes drive to the Parliament from there, where we watched the Flag raising ceremony and the Changing of the Guards. Since the Changing of the Guards ceremony finished at 10:30 am, we walked around and looked at the exhibits, kiosks, etc. Then at 11:30 am, we watched the SkyHawks Show (we had to go back to Jacques-Cartier Park for it though). At noon, the Canada Day Noon Show started, with the 21-gun salute and many different cultural shows. There was also a lot of street performers around, so we couldn't be bored at all!

After the show, we decided to stop at Canada’s Biggest Barbecue Event on the Plaza Bridge hosted by President's Choice. We had some lunch, then walked around a bit. Since there is free admission to many national museums and attractions for the day only, we took advantage of that.

Inside the Museum of Civilization

We visited the Aviation and Space Museum first, which took us only about 2 hours, so at around 3 pm, we went to Luna Crepes for a snack, then we went to the Agriculture Museum until 4:30 pm. Then, at 4:45 pm, we got in the Museum of Civilization. The free admission is only until 5 pm, which is why we had no time to relax. Even though it was quite busy and there was a lot of walking, it was great to see a lot around!

We stayed at the Museum of Civilization the longest, since there was so much to see. It was really interesting too. At 7:45 pm, we left and went back to Gatineau. We had dinner at home and relaxed until 9:30 pm. Then, left to go back to the Parliament to watch the fireworks at 10 pm. What a day.

Canada Day fireworks in Ottawa

Happy Canada Day!