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The journey from Ottawa to Niagara falls lasts more than one day.
On the way, we meet our first technical problem when it comes to fill up our french gas bottle with propane. It dates from 2004 with a 10 years validity ( it's engraved on the bottle and we never noticed it...) So we are beeing told that no one will refill it for us, for safety reasons.
We will try in the USA : they might not be so strict .
We arrive in Niagara Falls on sunday morning under a very grey sky.
Even if we both have been here before, the falls are still very impressive and so is the crowd.
From the Canadian side, we take hundreds of pictures anf films of the american and the canadian falls and fight with the crowd to get as close as possible to the water.
We then cross the bride to th USA to see the falls from the other side.
The custom formalities take some time as it's our first entry on the US territory with our 6 months visa.
As every tourist does, we embark on the "Maid of The Mist" to approach the falls as much as possible. We get a free shower although we have our plastic raincoat. But the view is fabulous..
Back on the canadian side, the sun is out. So, guess what ?
We take another hundreds of photos and films of the falls.
Because we've been walking 15 km today, we treat ourselves with an ice cream before having a rest in the camper.
Evening ended at 10 PM with a firework over the illuminated falls.
We spend the whole morning on the highway from Montreal to Ottawa.
Relaxing afternoon by the lake Lemay (5 km from city center) where we're going to spend the night
Ottawa, the capital city has been chosen by Queen Victoria as a geographical compromise between Toronto and Montreal, and also because it was far away from the US border.
Our first visit is for Parliament Hill, which takes us most of the day...
First, one has to queue for about 1 hour to get a free ticket for a guided tour of the House of Parliament, at a specified time.
The tour takes 1h30 min including 45 min security check.
The facade of the building made us think the interior would be superb : that wasn't the case. The library was the only room that was worth it.
It was more of a guided tour on how the parliamentary system works in Canada than anything else. We were really surprised that the Guide du routard rated it 3 stars.
The world heritage canal with it's 8 locks was much more interesting.
In between, we tried a "beaver tail" ( a flat dougnut with chocolate, apple and cinnamon!)
ROAD BOOK 013
We stayed an extra day in Ottawa to visit the main 2 museums.
The " musée des beaux arts" had a temporary exhibition. A danish collection of Impressionists Masters.
The permanent collection made us discover american and canadian artists whose style of painting was very new for us . We enjoyed it very much.
Then , the" museum of civalization" was really worth the visit.
Remarkable artefacts and impressive totems were displayed in very light rooms with a perfect signage.
A tour guided us from the origins to nowadays and from the first natives to the actual integration policy.
A 45 min film completed this exhibition. We loved this museum.
MAVROS ODYSSEE
