Three days in Ottawa: a lumber town made capital, with the museums to prove it
Two nights at the meeting of two rivers and a canal: Parliament Hill and the market on the first afternoon, the national gallery and the war museum on the second day, and the fossils on the way out.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Ottawa
- Places
- 7 across 3 days
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Ottawa exists as a capital because of an argument. In the 1850s the Province of Canada could not decide between Quebec City, Montreal, Kingston and Toronto, so in 1857 the question went to Queen Victoria and she chose a lumber town of a few thousand people on the border between the French and English halves of the colony, far enough from the American frontier to be defensible. Nobody was pleased, which was rather the point.
What the lumber town had was the Rideau Canal, dug by hand between 1826 and 1832 under a Royal Engineers colonel called By, as a supply route that would avoid the St Lawrence and therefore the Americans. The canal never fired a shot in anger, is now a UNESCO site, and in February it freezes into the longest skating rink anywhere.
The city that grew on top of all this is small, green, cold and heavy with national museums, most of them free one evening a week and all of them better than a city of a million people would otherwise have. Two nights is enough. Three would be enough if you like museums a great deal, which is a legitimate way to spend a weekend here.
Highlights
- A Gothic Revival parliament above a river, and a bell tower built as a war memorial
- A giant bronze spider outside a glass and granite gallery on the cliff
- A farmers' market that has been trading on the same blocks since the 1820s
- The mint that strikes Canada's collector coins, including one weighing a hundred kilograms
- A canal that becomes a skating commute for eight kilometres every winter
Where to stay
Ottawa, two nights
Downtown sits on a low headland where the Rideau Canal drops through eight locks into the Ottawa River, with Parliament on the cliff to the west and the ByWard Market on the flat to the east. Almost everything below is in those few blocks.
Stay in the market or just south of it in Sandy Hill or the Golden Triangle. The market is louder and closer to the restaurants; the streets by the canal are quieter and five minutes further.
Day by day
Day 1 in Ottawa
Parliament Hill, the locks and the market
Start on the hill. Parliament sits on a bluff over the river in high Victorian Gothic, and the tower in the middle of it is a memorial: the original building burned down in February 1916 with the war on, and what went up in its place was named the Peace Tower and finished in 1927. The Centre Block is shut for a restoration that will run for years yet, so the tours go through the West Block instead, where the Commons sits in a glazed-over courtyard. Book ahead.
Walk down the east side of the hill to where the canal comes up from the river through eight locks in a stone staircase. The little stone building beside them was Colonel By's commissariat, is the oldest building in the city, and now holds the museum of how a canal turned into a capital.
Then five minutes east into the ByWard Market, which has been the middle of Ottawa since the 1820s and has gone from taverns and brothels to produce stalls, restaurants and the country's most photographed doughnut queue. Eat here tonight.
- 14:30
Parliament Hill
NatureFree tours, booked online, roughly an hour. The lawn and the view over the river cost nothing and are open all day.
- 16:15
Bytown Museum
ArchitectureSmall, cheap and quick, in the 1827 stone commissariat at the foot of the locks. Forty minutes and worth it for the canal engineering alone.
- 17:15
ByWard Market
OtherProduce stalls outside in summer, food halls and bars in the buildings all year. Busiest on a Saturday morning and a Friday night.
- 19:00
Dinner in the market
EatFour blocks with more restaurants than the rest of downtown put together. Book on a weekend or eat before seven.
With more time: Kiweki Point, on the bluff behind the gallery, is a ten minute walk and the best place in the city to watch the sun go down behind Parliament.
Day 2 in Ottawa
The gallery, the mint and the war museum
The National Gallery is across the road from the market, in a glass and granite building Moshe Safdie put on the cliff in 1988 whose great hall deliberately echoes the parliamentary library across the water. Outside it stands Louise Bourgeois's nine metre bronze spider with a sac of marble eggs under her. Inside, the Canadian and Indigenous galleries are the reason to come: the Group of Seven, Emily Carr, and a very large contemporary Inuit and First Nations collection. Two hours minimum.
The mint is a two minute walk away in a small Victorian fortress. This is where Canada's collector and commemorative coins are struck, along with bullion for other countries; the coins in your pocket are made in Winnipeg. The tour lasts under an hour and ends with you being invited to lift a gold bar that you will not be able to lift.
In the afternoon, west along the river to the Canadian War Museum. Raymond Moriyama designed it in 2005 as a long wedge of concrete with a sloping green roof, sunk into the ground so that it half disappears, and the interior gets progressively darker and lower as the century gets worse. Regeneration Hall at the end aims a narrow window at the Peace Tower. It is the most affecting piece of architecture in Ottawa and it is not a cheerful afternoon.
Dinner back in the market, or over the bridge in Gatineau where the prices drop.
- 10:00
National Gallery
CultureOpens at ten, free on Thursday evenings. Go up to the Canadian galleries first and leave the international rooms for whatever time is left.
- 12:45
Royal Canadian Mint
OtherGuided tours only, about forty-five minutes, booked on the day or ahead. Small, odd and genuinely interesting.
- 14:00
Lunch on Sussex Drive
EatThe blocks between the gallery and the mint have half a dozen decent options and no need to book.
- 15:00
Canadian War Museum
CultureTwenty minutes west along the river path from Parliament. Allow two and a half hours and start at the top of the ramp rather than in the shop.
With more time: The Supreme Court sits between Parliament and the war museum, is the best Art Deco building in Ottawa, and runs free tours by law students through the summer.
Day 3 in Ottawa
Fossils, and the building that once held Parliament
One more museum before you go, and it is the oldest of them. The Canadian Museum of Nature occupies a 1912 stone pile ten minutes south of downtown that was built as the country's first purpose-made museum and then, when Parliament burned in 1916, served as the seat of government for four years. The Senate met in the auditorium and the Commons in the gallery upstairs.
Now it holds dinosaurs from Alberta, a blue whale skeleton, and a mineral gallery with meteorites in it. Two hours is right, and the glass lantern that replaced the tower the building was never strong enough to carry is worth going up into.
From there it is fifteen minutes back into the centre, or straight south to the station and the airport.
- 09:15
Canadian Museum of Nature
CultureOpens at nine most of the year. The fossil gallery is on the second floor and is the best half hour in the building.
With more time: If the weather is good, walk back along the Rideau Canal instead of taking the bus. The towpath runs from Dow's Lake to the locks and is about an hour on foot, or twenty minutes on a hired bike.
Before you go
Getting in
Macdonald-Cartier airport is fifteen minutes south of downtown and Line 4 of the O-Train now runs from the terminal, connecting at South Keys for the ride into the centre. Flights are mostly domestic plus a good number to American hubs, with United States customs cleared here before you board.
The train from Montreal takes about two hours and from Toronto about four and a half, and both arrive at Ottawa station, which is three kilometres east of downtown with a light rail stop outside the door.
Getting around
The core is small enough to walk. Parliament Hill, the market, the gallery, the mint and the canal locks are all within fifteen minutes of one another, and the only thing in this trip that needs transport is the war museum, which is a twenty minute walk along the river or five minutes in a taxi.
OC Transpo runs the buses and the O-Train, and the Confederation Line goes underneath the downtown with stops at Lyon, Parliament and Rideau. One fare covers a transfer.
The far bank of the river is Gatineau, in Quebec, and crossing a bridge means changing province, language and last call. It is a five minute walk from the gallery.
Parliament in restoration
The Centre Block, the building with the Peace Tower on it, has been closed since 2019 for a rebuild expected to run into the 2030s. It is the largest heritage restoration ever attempted in Canada and the grounds around it are a construction site.
You can still see the building from the lawn, and free guided tours run through the West Block, where the House of Commons now sits under a glass roof in what used to be a courtyard. Book those in advance online; walk-ups get whatever is left.
When to come
May for the tulips, which the Dutch royal family began sending after Canada sheltered them during the war and the city now plants by the hundred thousand. September and early October for the leaves in the Gatineau hills across the river.
February is the other real answer. The canal freezes, the city skates on it to work, and there is a winter festival built around ice sculpture. It is properly cold, regularly below minus twenty, and that is exactly what makes the ice thick enough.
Ottawa is a government town and does not pretend otherwise, which turns out to be its strength: the national collections all landed in one small walkable place, and you can see three of them in two days without ever taking a bus.
Give the spare hours to the water. The canal, the locks and the river path are what the city was built around, and they are free, flat and always open.
Or make it a longer trip
These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is Ottawa worth three days?
- If you like museums, yes. If you do not, two nights covers Parliament, the market and one gallery, and you are better off putting the third day into Montreal.
- Can I go inside Parliament?
- You can tour the West Block, where the Commons currently sits. The Centre Block with the Peace Tower is closed for restoration and will be for years. Book the free tour online before you travel.
- Should I cross into Gatineau?
- Yes, at least for an evening. It is a five minute walk over the bridge, the museum of history on that side has the best totem pole hall in the country, and dinner is noticeably cheaper.
- Is the canal really skateable?
- In a cold winter, yes, for about eight kilometres, and people commute on it. Warm winters have closed it almost entirely in recent years, so check before planning a trip around it.
- How does it compare with Montreal?
- It is a fifth the size, a great deal quieter, and considerably better organised. Go to Ottawa for the institutions and to Montreal for everything else. They are two hours apart by train.