Travel elicits many emotions, from awe to anger and from upgrade ecstasy to gift-shop remorse. But over the course of my Canadian wanderings there’s something more: Pride. That's what this series is all about: Sharing my proud perspective on the places and experiences that make my country the greatest on Earth. Some of my selections are world-famous, others are little-known and a few are acquired tastes. The insights offered below, meanwhile, may come in handy for the 4.2 zillion people converging on Canada’s capital tomorrow...

​It’s fitting that Ottawa’s skyline is still dominated by Parliament Hill’s Peace Tower. Many other trappings of federal and international government are prominent in the home of my alma mater — Go Ravens! — such as the Royal Canadian Mint, the Prime Minister’s official residence, and the Governor General’s estate. Combine all this history and ceremony with the country’s densest collection of world-class museums, and Ottawa succeeds in making Canadians proud — and visitors a little bit jealous.

Don’t leave without...
...climbing the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill. Free elevator trips to the observation deck below the four 15-foot-wide clock faces resume July 2, and provide glorious panoramic views of the region from 200 feet up. Guided tours of the Hill’s Centre Block, meanwhile, allow visitors to explore the neo-Gothic Senate and House of Commons, as well as the ornate Library of Parliament and stirring Memorial Chamber.
...visiting the National Gallery of Canada. A short walk from Parliament, this soaring architectural masterpiece is home to six expansive gallery spaces, including a Canadian collection featuring iconic works by the Group of Seven, and a European gallery filled with paintings by geniuses like Van Gogh, Cezanne and Rembrandt. There’s a lot of artistic glory to take in, so it’s a good thing the place is so comfortable, with a pair of peaceful landscaped courtyards, a relaxing cafeteria and intimate bookstore tucked behind the skyscraping glass windows of the Great Hall.
...strolling or skating along the Rideau Canal. Before it spills into the city’s namesake river via a spectacular flight of eight locks, this 190-km-long engineering marvel and World Heritage Site is lined with cycle paths, restaurants and pubs, parks and gardens, all of which provide ideal vantage points for admiring many of the landmarks on this list.

What we overlook
The aspects of Ottawa that aren’t all about Canada tend to fall by the wayside. Just across the river in Quebec, for instance, leafy Gatineau Park is a hiker’s, cyclist’s and skier’s dream, while the Casino du Lac Leamy is an adults-only playground with gaming galore, top-notch dining, decadent spas and a 1,100-seat theatre. In the city itself, the diversions that get plenty of attention from locals — the beaches and volleyball courts of Mooney's Bay Park, for instance, or the recently revamped Lansdowne recreation complex — tend to get skipped by visitors.

Locals only
Waterfront holiday homes abound just outside of Ottawa, but you don’t need to own recreational real estate to get in on the action. Gatineau Park is home to dozens of sandy beaches, and you can take a relaxing dip in “The Pond,” a secret swimming hole tucked into the ritzy Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood off the aptly named Pond Street. Then there's the Capital Pathway network, one of the largest multi-use trails in North America with more than 600 kilometres of car-free goodness connecting many of the attractions on this list.

Family
Why cross the Atlantic to get a taste of royalty when you can sample its trappings at Rideau Hall, the official residence and workplace of Canada’s Governor General? The Queen’s representative in Canada has some pretty sweet digs: The opulent public rooms and multi-million-dollar art collection will impress grown-ups, while the expansive outdoor grounds, complete with cricket pitch, skating rink and Alice in Wonderland-style Rose Garden, will enthral youngsters. Children will also get a kick out of the changing of the guard — and the towering headgear worn by the guardsmen. 

Hip Hoods
Convenience and charm collide in the Byward Market, a 26-block shopping district sandwiched between Parliament Hill, the Ottawa River and the multi-storey Rideau Centre shopping mall. It’s home to one of the oldest agricultural markets in Canada, but don’t expect just farmers and fishmongers here. Depending on the season, the market building itself often overflows with stands selling everything from wild blackberries to hand-made bracelets. The surrounding streets, meanwhile, are lined with boutiques, restaurants, clubs and taverns, which spill into a series of open-air courtyards that will be rocking on July 1.
Bank Street, one of Ottawa’s main thoroughfares, is also the principal artery running through the Glebe neighbourhood south of downtown. Boutiques, pubs and restaurants line the streetscape here, with the multi-purpose Lansdowne Park — home to the CFL’s Grey Cup Champion Redblacks — bordering the Glebe to the south and the picturesque, park-lined Rideau Canal marking its eastern border.

Culture
The stark modern design of the Canadian War Museum evokes a bunker, the grass-covered roof a battlefield, and small windows on a towering rooftop fin spell out "Lest we forget" in Morse Code. Inside, the permanent galleries display items including one of Adolph Hitler’s Mercedes limousines, while covering conflicts ranging from First Nations battles and the War of 1812 to the Cold War and Afghanistan. The highlight, however, is the Memorial Hall, a space for remembrance and contemplation containing a single artifact: the headstone of Canada’s Unknown Soldier from the First World War.

Read the rest of the story in International Traveller magazine

WHERE TO STAY
The Courtyard Ottawa Downtown, located in the heart of the Byward Market, features an on-site Bistro where you can turn a Marriott Rewards dining card into the most patriotic of Canadian beverage. (Hint: It’s beer.)

Travel elicits many emotions, from awe to anger and from upgrade ecstasy to gift-shop remorse. But over the course of my Canadian wanderings there’s something more: Pride. That's what this daily series is all about: Sharing my proud perspective on the places and experiences that make my country the greatest on Earth.

As much as it is a celebration, Canada 150 is an opportunity to understand the modern and historical injustices faced by First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. Truth and reconciliation starts with education and awareness, and here travel can play a role. Hundreds of experiences across the country provide unique insight into indigenous history and culture. A few have already been covered by the Canada 150 Countdown, and more will be highlighted by the Canada 200 Countdown starting on July 4. (Yes, this is happening.)

Consider these two places on the prairies of southern Alberta. As a teenager growing up in Calgary, where First Nations culture is much more visible than in my adopted hometown of Toronto, they made a profound and lasting impression:

Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park
Why did indigenous people, coming and going over the millennia, pick this particular spot to amass the greatest concentration of rock art on the North American Plains? My repeat visits to this compact park deep in southern Alberta revealed the allure: A sea of towering sandstone hoodoos for spiritual inspiration, and a dip in the gently meandering Milk River for delicious relaxation. A wealth of wildlife — pheasant, partridge, deer and antelope — must have delivered dinner back in the day, but in the late 1980s we dined on grilled Alberta steaks — a spiritual experience all its own. Likewise, modern guided tours explored the 50-plus sites where, centuries ago, images of warriors, hunters and dancers were carved into the hoodoos.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Standing atop this gravity-powered abattoir, I could almost hear the thunder of hooves and the crunch of skulls. For 6,000 years, the region’s Blackfoot people hunted buffalo en masse by driving herds of the beefy beasts off 35-foot-high cliffs. My imagination had already been ignited by the World Heritage Site’s interpretive centre, where I had witnessed a demonstration of drumming and dancing and learned to craft my own moccasins. But with nothing but rolling prairie between myself and the horizon, it was mainly the emptiness of the place that made it so evocative of a way of life — and death — that will never return.

It was never pretty, aesthetically or environmentally. To be honest, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of a blot on the landscape, what with the landscape in question being so pleasing to the eye. 
I spent much of my childhood bouncing between the homes of grandparents, cousins and summer friends in Drayton, Sutton Courtney, Steventon, and the other villages and towns on and around England's rolling Wiltshire Downs. I've been back several times as an adult -- twice as a father -- and still revel in revisiting the diversions of my youth: The Uffington White Horse prehistoric hill figure; Wittenham Clumps, a pair of wooded hills and ancient forts; the footpaths around the Thames weirs at Sutton Courtney; and even the modest Sutton Wick duck pond in Drayton (pictured below), where both sets of grandparents lived across the High Street from each other.  
This is one of the most underrated parts of England. Millions of visitors take day trips from London to the Cotswold Hills and Stonehenge -- both less than an hour's drive from the Drayton Triangle, as I call it -- as well as to Oxford, the world-famous university city 20 minutes north. It could be that Didcot Power Station (pictured above), the concrete monstrosity that rose over the region in the late 1960s to near-universal dismay and distain, has caused tourists to bypass the area. If so, I owe it a debt of gratitude for the uncrowded pubs, serene villages and countryside (pictured below), and lack of tour buses in the Triangle.
These days, I also derive great pleasure from bringing my daughters along, and watching as they gaze wide-eyed at the White Horse's 110-metre-long chalk body (pictured below), or hurl crusts of bread into the swirling Thames, drawing ducks by the dozens.
Relatives who still live in the Triangle chuckle when I outline our repetitive itinerary. It probably seems strangely quaint -- boring, even -- when compared with the iconic sights of London or even those of Oxford. But I will never tire of the Triangle, or of reliving those halcyon days and sharing them with my family. 
Next time we visit, however, something will be missing. Part of it is already gone: In the early morning of July 27, the three southern cooling towers of Didcot A -- the coal-fired plant; Didcot B is fueled with natural gas -- were spectacularly demolished. (The rest of the coal plant will apparently be taken down brick by brick over the next few years.)
I would have liked to have been among the thousands of spectators who turned out for the implosion. My late grandfather Harry, however, would have been there no matter what. He despised the power station. An avid painter of English landscapes, he resented its grey brooding presence. But when I saw its plump concrete smoke stacks loom over the horizon on the way from Heathrow, I knew that a summer of non-stop fun was about the begin.
Granddad Bisby invariably excluded it from his bucolic watercolours. But if I'm ever feeling nostalgic, I may just Photoshop it in.