Between Toronto and Ottawa...

...lies Kingston. Home to one of Canada's biggest penitentiaries. Also to one of the major Canadian military bases, as well as a military school. Add to this one of Canada's most renowned universities, Queens, and you get an interesting mix to this otherwise quaint city on the coast of Lake Ontario.

It was a busy time to be there. Labour day weekend meant the campsite was overflowing with families cramming in just one more trip before the kids return to school. Queens university was also gearing up for a new year, and throngs of students descended the Kingston streets, conducting frosh activities, marching like a mob one afternoon to the football stadium to cheer their team on against Guelph. Dressed in yellow, blue and red and drawing attention to themselves as only a mob of late teens/young adults can.

After a couple of days I carried on to Ottawa. I arrived in the nation's capital on Labour Day, listening to debates on CBC radio about the irony of Labour Day amongst the unemployed. But I had a destination, and immediately found my way to St. Paul's university campus to watch the premier of Carolynn's Otesha play.

The obvious draw to Ottawa is the Parliament Buildings. Along with its status as the Capital city of Canada, it was not unexpected to find that its a very clean, pretty city. It, too, had a bustling vibe of young professionals, old professionals, students and governmental types.

But the most pleasant discovery for me were the bike paths. Having heard it was a bike-friendly city, imagine my glee at the beginning of the day, upon discovering on of these familiar little Dutch markers as I set off to discover the city by bike.

I'll have to take part of what I said in my last blog about Canadian cities and their common conflict between cyclists and drivers, and urge other Canadian cities to look at Ottawa as an example. Yay! Real bike paths! A long one, called the Ottawa River Parkway Ottawa's side of the river. If you cross either the Alexandra bridge or the Portage bridge, you suddenly find yourself in Gatineau (Hull), Quebec, also lovely and obviously well cared for, and also with a long bike path, called Voyageur. There are paths along the canals to take you deeper into town, and even clear delineations on many regular streets.

Maybe the reason I enjoyed Ottawa so much was because I was allowed the freedom to discover it with Betty in a bike friendly place. Able to see and feel so much more of the city by bike than if stuck on foot or finding parking lots big enough to park the Jamboree. All this + the gorgeous weather = my idea of how to spend a blissful day.

And that about wraps it up for Ontario. Allons-y a Quebec!

Kingston-Ottawa album:

Kingston-Ottawa