Ottawa resources/info

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I started a page to keep track of useful Ottawa-related resources:

   http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2000/07/ottawa/

(movie listings, TV listings, weather, tourist info)

Anyone have favorite online resources that aren't on this page?

When surfing around, I found a good writeup on Ottawa in Excite Travel
(written by the publishers of Rough Guides):

http://travel.excite.com/show/?loc=6015

> OTTAWA has three major claims to fame: it's the capital of the
> second biggest country on the planet, it's the Western world's
> coldest capital, and popular opinion holds that it is one of
> the world's dullest. The Canadian government, all too aware of
> the third, have spent lashings of dollars to turn Ottawa into
> "a city of urban grace in which all Canadians can take pride".
> The grid-planned streets virtually sparkle.  Buggies guzzle up
> the litter even in pouring rain, snow is whisked off the
> pavements as soon as it hits the deck, and because Ottawa's
> main industry is chinwagging, pollution is almost non-existent.
> Ottawa has been painstakingly groomed to impress visitors and
> stimulate its population of just over 313,000 with parks and
> gardens, bicycle and jogging paths, national museums, cultural
> facilities like the National Arts Centre and a downtown farm -
> just in case the four-kilometre-wide green belt isn't close
> enough.
>
> This investment is resented by many Canadians, an attitude that
> has been almost constant since Queen Victoria, inspired by some
> watercolours of the Gatineau Hills, declared Ottawa the
> capital, leaving Montr�al and Toronto smarting at their rebuff.
> Once Victoria had made her momentous decision things started to
> happen in Ottawa - it changed from a brawling, boozy lumbering
> town to a place where Canada's future would be decided. As
> nineteenth-century pundit Goldwin Smith curtly pointed out,
> Ottawa was "a subarctic lumber village converted by royal
> mandate into a political cockpit".
>
> Yet, despite the promotion in status, the capital has a
> small-town atmosphere and an easily manageable size. It is
> divided by the Rideau Canal into Upper and Lower Town: to the
> west, on the steep banks of the Ottawa River, the
> Gothic-inspired Parliament Buildings are the high point of
> Upper Town, whilst in Lower Town the focal point is the
> boulevard of Sussex Drive, which curves along the river to the
> posh locale of Rockcliffe in the northeast, passing the
> glasshouse of the National Gallery and several other smaller
> museums on the way. To the south, beyond the Lower Town, the
> National Museum of Science and Technology is the main draw.
>
> As Parliament Hill resounds to politicians debating the
> complexities of Qu�bec nationalism, exemplary Canadian
> diplomacy has ensured that the national capital is not an
> anglophone bastion. The Qu�b�cois town of Hull, just across the
> Ottawa River in a region known as the Outaouais, is linked to
> Ottawa by five bridges and is fast becoming an integrated part
> of the city, though Hull is still very proud of its French
> heritage - after the introduction of Qu�bec's language laws one
> local shopkeeper was fined $1000 for displaying an English
> "Merry Christmas" poster. Federal investment has created Hull's
> wonderful Mus�e Canadien des Civilisations, and the marriage of
> the two settlements is confirmed by the five-kilometre tourist
> route called Confederation Boulevard, which links the main
> attractions on both sides of the river.
>
> Various immigrant communities - including Italians, Lebanese
> and Chinese - have enriched the atmosphere of Ottawa in recent
> years, bringing international restaurants and numerous
> festivals to the scene. Renovations of historic districts such
> as the Byward Market in Lower Town have paved the way for the
> development of trendy boutiques, eateries and open-air markets
> - finding a ready market among the students from Carleton
> University and the University of Ottawa. A city dubbed too
> perfect for excitement is at last reforming its reputation.
>
>
> Copyright Rough Guides Ltd as trustee for its authors.
> Published by Rough Guides. All rights reserved. The Rough
> Guide name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd.

(hmm... when stealing copyrighted material, is it better to
include the copyright, or not? :)

Here's something to appease their lawyers: the Rough Guides to
Portugal and Spain we used this summer seemed very good, highly
recommended.

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/

HURL: fogo mailing list archives, maintained by Gerald Oskoboiny