Well our second full day in Ottawa. I had big plans to wake up early this morning and set the alarm for a very early (when you’re on holiday), 7.50 am. Unfortunately I then decided as it went off to change it to 9am due to the incredible sense of tiredness I felt. Isn’t this always the same though? The best sleep you ever feel like you have is between alarms and not during the middle of the night.

At 9am I arose and commenced my study for the day whilst Claire snoozed away in bed. I might have been the tiniest bit jealous but to be fair to her it wasn’t very long before she got up. A couple of hours of study were followed up by us developing the plan for the day. The War Museum was meant to be the best museum in Ottawa so that was on our list, followed by Les Brasseurs du Temps (a brewery we’d spotted in a tourist book) and then a nice restaurant in the evening, Beckta.

Heading out and having found a fairly decent coffee chain (Bridgehead) yesterday we found the one nearest and headed there for a morning/lunch coffee. Unfortunately I fell into a trap though of ordering the largest coffee under the belief they only served two sizes. What I got instead would have been over half a litre of coffee in a giantish takeaway cup. It took me nearly all the 30 or so minute walk to the War Museum to finish it off. The walk to the War Museum was slightly off the beaten track and along a lot of big roads, which isn’t our favourite thing to do but it was a means to an end.

The War Museum was impressive but we both got to a point where we just couldn’t read about wars anymore after a couple of hours. The history part was pretty interesting especially about the establishment of early Canada, the conflict between the First People and the French and then the French and the English. I quite liked the way the term First people is used. The history of World Wars I&II, I pretty much knew, but this expanded into Canadian involvement and their dilemmas about providing troops to the Allies. The later part of the museum was around the Cold War and conflicts in Korea and the Congo.

A 25 minute walk was all it took to get to the nice brewery on the river. Although again walking down pretty busy truck routes. The brewery was a little oasis in the industrial landscape. And to our mind must have been in the French side of the city. We should have guessed via the name really but everyone when they spoke to you spoke French until they realised we spoke English. I know basic schoolboy French, but it wouldn’t have helped me much more than to order a beer or say hello, thank you and good-bye. And I got to try the dish everyone is meant to try in Canada, Poutine! Basically a mix of chips, gravy and lumps of soft cheese. It felt like a typical meal after a night out of 7 pints. Although very delicious. They did do a beer tasting tray, however they called it the clock. 12 beers all set out in a circle and numbered like the positions on a clock. The menu they took you through all the beer ranging many different styles from Ales, Weizens, Stouts, Dopplebocks and Imperial IPAs. The sample size was 80ml and it cost only $17. I mean in Australia that might be the cost of a tasting paddle of 5 beers in some places and you probably wouldn’t get such big samples.

I decided to be good and not drink all of everything, rather try everything and then go back to the ones I liked. This worked well and meant I wasn’t rolling out of there after having the equivalent of three pints in an hour. The beer was just okay, I felt they maybe tried to produce as many different styles as possible rather than focusing on one or two and making a superb job of those one or two. The bar itself had over 20 beers on tap, all of them, they made themselves.

We had a nicer walk back through towards the Natural History Museum and across the Alexandra Bridge back towards our hotel. The day so far had been very humid and an afternoon trying to knock back 3 pints of beer in the sun certainly leaves you feeling drained. Luckily we had an hour and a half back at our hotel before we headed out again. I needed to finish off a bit of study so I set myself to doing that before heading out for our dinner at Beckta. The most recommended restaurant in the Lonely Planet.

We had a booking in the wine room setting instead of the main restaurant; the only difference I could really ascertain was there weren’t any white tablecloths. The food was nice and reasonably priced and as everywhere does when your exploring a new country they had a couple of beers I hadn’t tried. I was significantly flagging after dinner so we ordered dessert to keep me going a little bit longer.

After dessert, as tends to happen in a country where a tip is expected, the waiter will suddenly make conversation, even if they have seemingly ignored you all the way through dinner. The waiter picked up we were from overseas, asked how long we were in Ottawa and what we’d done today. We mentioned we’d been to Les Brasseurs du Temps and he was curious how we ended up there. I mentioned my love of craft beer and that we’d seen it in a magazine. We then got onto talking about everyone speaking French to us, regardless of whether it was the first, second or third time they’d spoken to us. He then told us something that amazed us, we’d actually walked into Quebec province (the brewery is in Gatineau) and the majority of the people in the province speak French. He told us even though he had a working knowledge of French (most people are bi-lingual here in Ottawa), he wouldn’t be able to get a job in Quebec because his French isn’t good enough. We had a good chuckle because we’d been considering going into Quebec, but didn’t realise we’d managed to walk there.

We wandered home. An early night was needed after two full on days.

IJS 17/07/2017