Photo: Ottawa Tourism

As we browsed the pillow menu in our two-bedroom hotel suite in downtown Ottawa, six-year-old Jaden asked, “Do they have a pillow to stop nightmares?” They didn’t, but they had just about everything else.

There’s no better way to tap into what makes Ottawa tick than to travel with kids. Our family entourage of two tots and three adults – with admittedly lower star power than Brangelina’s brat pack – began in the city’s hub, ByWard Market. Sleepy-looking vendors rolled out carts laden with fruit while early-morning joggers stretched their limbs beneath the tawny edifices of Canada’s oldest market. President Obama may have bought a cookie at Le Moulin de Provence, but we scored a jug of Perth Sugarbush maple syrup, a round of sublime Pied-de-Vent cheese and a Marvel Comics tee at the Bang-On T-Shirts emporium.

Photo: Ottawa Tourism

From the market, it’s an easy walk to the National Gallery, where we gawked at the underbelly of the soaring Maman spider sculpture by expressionist artist Louise Bourgeois. Inside the gallery, teens channelled their inner Emily Carr (or Jack Bush) at the Artissimo Kiosk while we curated our own family experience by tracing the sounds of rushing waterfalls and laughing children on a unique audio tour of the gallery’s artworks.

Photo: Gordon R / flickr

By late afternoon it was time to recharge with a kid-friendly afternoon tea and Manhattans for the adults at Zoé’s Lounge. Across the Rideau Canal, the bold curves of the new $180-million Ottawa Convention Centre made a nice backdrop for a family photo op.

Next up was eclectic Elgin Street. Once gritty, now edgy, the neighbourhood has a new buzz that’s all about specialty shops, bakeries and indie boutiques. Green-leaning parents filled hemp tote bags with non-gluten bread while we made a pit stop for poutine at the Elgin Street Diner, a hipster hangout that’s stroller-friendly.

Just around the corner, behind the new glass facade of the Canadian Museum of Nature we explored a gallery of life-size dinosaurs complete with asteroid blasts in the Extinction Theatre. 

Early evening, the twentysomethings headed to a video art opening at the subterranean SAW Gallery. The kids and I retreated to our suite at the Albert at Bay hotel to take advantage of the full kitchen/dining room with mac ’n’ cheese to go from Murray’s Market, purveyor of local goodies. Ottawa’s proximity to an abundance of farms (there are more within the city limits here than in any other Canadian city) means inventive chefs are reshaping the capital’s food scene as fast as its skyline evolves.

At sunset, we headed to the rooftop patio to kick a soccer ball around amid a backdrop of cityscape lights, and all agreed – Ottawa is full of cool surprises.

(Michele Peterson is a Toronto-based writer.)

Photo: Ottawa Tourism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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