Ottawa, Ontario

I recently took a 5 day trip to Ottawa, Ontario the capitol of Canada. It was a beautiful city, with no shortage of old architecture and cafes to snuggle down in with a good book. I traveled there by car from Chicago, Illinois with my travel partner. It took roughly 16 hours there and back, but taking 94 to 69 to the 401 almost entirely avoided tolls. 

When travelling through Ontario there are "Onroutes" every 100 km or so which are basically an Oasis meets a rest stop. They often have food, gas and parking to pull over and take a nap in, which for those traveling by car is a valuable resource. We stayed at the Days Inn in downtown Ottowa, I would highly recommend it for anyone intending to visit the city. The hotel itself was a bit broken down and the halls smell like years of smoke damage. But the rooms are very large and it is so centrally located that you hardly spend anytime in the hotel. 


Oh! The food in Ottowa is incomparable. Even the cheap pizza place across the street was delightful and had whole wheat crust on all of their pizzas. Some of the best places I ate were, Nestle Toll House Cafe, The Nostalgic, and The Cock and the Lion. Plus there are always little markets with fresh fruit, bread and jam. When you are eating at a sit-down restaurant a lot of times they do not bring you your check. They wait on you until you have all of your meal then you must get up and begin to leave and they will ring you up. This is not true for all restaurants there but if you have finished your meal and are sitting around waiting for a check you might want to just get up and ask. 

I would recommend that you bring amazing walking shoes for this trip, A mere 3-5 mile walk, depending on where you are starting, will get you to the other side of the Ottawa River into Gatineau,Quebec. 

Something else to keep in mind when travelling to Ottawa is that it is a bilingual city. You can absolutely get around without speaking French but you will see it everywhere and some people and even businesses will speak to you first in French. So, if you do not know french just politely say...Je ne parle pas Français, which just means I do not speak french. You can also just begin to speak in English and most people will then switch to English as well. 

If you are from the states you may not have seen the type of credit card scanners that they have in Canada. They are handheld boxes where there will be a slot in the bottom to stick your card. You have to put it in there and push until it clicks. Then watch the screen because it will prompt you to do different things. This is so common in Ottawa (and most of Canada) that if you are confused they will certainly know you are not from the area. 

Thanks for reading, I hope this is helpful to anyone interested in visiting Ottawa. Check out the pictures from my trip and my upcoming social commentaries on Canada and the world of Academia.