- Home gatherings are not allowed, except for people who live together under the same roof of course and outdoor meet ups must be limited to a maximum of five people who need to keep a reasonable distance while meeting anyhow.
- Gyms are still closed and so are restaurants and cafés which can only offer takeout and delivery services at the moment
- Essential businesses such as shops, post offices, medical centres, supermarkets, etc. can remain open with a 50 per cent capacity under the current rules.
I am going crazy staying at home all day so, when I’m not working and obviously outside of curfew hours, I like to take walks and I’m trying to enjoy being a tourist in the town where I’m living. Most days I choose to walk along the Rideau Canal: the landscape is not the most varied and one should not expect to encounter monuments along the way, but it is pleasant. In some places, where the canal is narrower, it is also quite picturesque. There are a lot of green areas, some bike paths, beautiful landscapes and many beautiful mansions. Once they were the homes of various ambassadors and it is obvious that even today the socio-economic level of this neighbourhood is quite high. The canal, which extends for over 150km, was built for military purposes out of fear that the threat of American occupation would materialize in the blockade of the other waterway represented by the Ottawa River. In this way, however, they would always ensure supplies through a safe route. It is around this first nucleus of the canal that the city began to develop at the beginning of the 1800. It was actually never used for this purpose and soon became the destination for pleasant boat trips.
To pass from the river to the canal, a hand-operated system of dams one behind the other in sequence is still in place which, opening, allow you to change the water level of that section, allowing the boats to proceed to the next dam. I don't know how long it takes for a boat to cross them all, but from what I've seen it's quite a long process.
Downtown Ottawa has a decidedly different atmosphere now but it has always been pretty quiet and very picturesque. Before Covid times though, many cheerful restaurants on the few main streets and a central market, used to make it a very nice and safe area for dining out and take a stroll. Now it’s pretty deserted. A nice place where to stroll is near the Governor’s House; there’s a huge park open to all, but kept as if it were private. Lots of trees, each planted during some state visits by Presidents, authorities, members of the various Royal families and each with its own plaque at the base that illustrates who planted it and when. It's like a treasure hunt if you want to try to guess what tree it is and who might have planted it. To give a special meaning to my walk in the park, I searched for the tree planted by the Prince William and his wife Kate, during their tour of Canada. I remembered that they had been there and that they had planted a tree, but I had no clue what kind it was. The search was more difficult than it seemed until I realized that they were not arranged at random but grouped according to a certain order of category so the Royals were all more or less close to one another and had a special corner of the park. Therefore, once I found the Queen’s majestic tree, it was easy to find the Duke and Duchess’s fir tree.
