Fort Henry and the 1000 islands

In one of the previous posts you have seen the beginning of Rideau Canal in Ottawa. Now I will show its other end in Kingston (Ontario), i.e., the Martello Towers.

They are part of a bigger fortification called Fort Henry. It was built by the British which can be easily recongised by the British coat of arms on the gate.

The Fort is animated by the Fort Henry Guard, a special organisation which tries to visualise to the guests the life in the fort in the days of Queen Victoria. They organise regular parades.

I could not believe my eyes so I leaned a bit through the handrail.

Yes! It was a goat!

I later found out it was David, the mascotte of the Guards.

One of the biggest attractions of the Fort is the firing of historical cannons. The Guards take care of them of course.

Here you can see one of the cannons closer ...

... and closer.

Later on, we decided to take a little cruise in the Thousand Islands Region.

So far, my only though about 1000 islands was the famous dressing. Now I realised it is a wonderful landscape with many beautiful islands (to be precise there are 1,864 no 1,000).

Just have a look here ....

... and here.

Navigare necesse est as they say.

Ottawa - Part 1

Our next stop was Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. We started our visit at the Parliament Hill.

As you correctly guessed, the main attraction of the Hill is the Parliament building.

The most known part of it is the Peace Tower, i.e., a clock tower that you will find on the 20-dollar bill and the 50-dollar bill. Until early 1970s it was the highest point in Ottawa.

Behind the main building you will the the building of the Library, which in turn can be seen on the 10-dollar bill. It is the last part of the original building that survived until our days, after the terrible fire in 1916.

Finally, we went to see the inside chambers. We entered by the Rotunda.

Here you can see the House of Commons ...

... and the Senate.

On our way out of the Parliament we admired the changing of guards.

Canadian Guards are known for their nice red uniforms and hats. Most of the girsl are crazy about them. But this time it was the opposite - the guards were so charmed by Aleksandra that they asked me to take a picture of them together.

* * *

And here a little a bonus - a backstage picture.

Sechseläuten

Last Monday I visited my friend Marta who lives in Zurich. And yes, you guessed it right, she is a postcard collector that I have met via Postcrossing. I must admit that the Warsaw airport is almost like a second home to me.

 Luckily, I never leave my house without my passport.

The reason why I chose to go to Zurich on that specific day was that the 3rd Monday of April is the traditional day of Sechseläuten, or spring holiday. On that day the guilds are having a parade in the streets of the city. Unfortunatelly it was raining heavily so the parade was not as spectacular as it could have been. Yet, you can see the orchestra.

 And a part of the parade. As you see, the members of the guilds wear the traditional, historical costumes.

But if you think that they have completely missed the fact that the time is passing then I must tell that it is not the case.

 The most important element of Sechseläuten is the burning of the Böögg, a figure of a snowman prepared with explosives. He represents the winter of course. The Zurich people believe that if the snowman burns quickly and his head explodes within a short time than the summer will be long and warm. Here you can see what remains of the Böögg.

As I have already mentioned, this year it was raining on the Sechseläuten day so it took quite long for the Böögg's head to explode. Not a good prognostic for the summer unfortunatelly.