Jenna and I went to Ottawa for a weekend in the middle of October, finally–neither of us had yet been there, even after several years in Canada, and considering that Ottawa isn’t really that far away from Niagara. Jenna wanted to go to a conference on global health so it was a good excuse to go.

We had tremendous luck  with the weather and with the choice of weekend; fall colours were at peak. Well, I was lucky: only the Sunday was nice; the Saturday was gray, dull, cold, wet and foggy, and that was the only day Jenna had for sightseeing.

Ottawa is a really nice city, with its location of the city over the Ottawa River and with the Rideau Canal running through it. In the picture, you can see the Rideau Canal going through a number of locks down to the Ottawa River. Parliament is on the bluff to the left, overlooking the river and the canal (a spectacular location for a spectacular set of buildings, if you ask me).