Canada may not have many castles (as we have already lamented) but we have some pretty spectacular parliament buildings all across the country, and the gothic ones in Ottawa are no exception. Most of the original parliament buildings were actually destroyed in a fire in 1916 and had to be rebuilt.
The main surviving structure from the original parliament buildings was the library, which was saved from the fire by a particularly quick librarian that managed to close some enormous doors and keep the worst of the fire from spreading to there. As any librarians will no doubt appreciate, fire is bad in a room full of books.
The Peace Tower is the central tower at the front of the building and is worthy of a closer look. While the outside is dotted with gothic gargoyles of all types, just below the clock you can see a row of windows. There is an interior tour available that takes you to an observation deck above the bells. This includes a chance to see the Memorial Chamber which contains books listing all the names of soliders killed in Canadas wars since the First World War. Every day one of the guards turns the pages in each book so that every soldiers name has one day a year facing up to be remembered.
No comments:
Post a Comment