Visiting the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa During the Tulip Festival

Every year, Ottawa, the capital city of Canada hosts an annual Tulip Festival to welcome the arrival of spring in May.

We took advantage of the fine weather and visited our beloved capital city during the festival recently.

We stayed a few days in Ottawa and visited a few other places, one of which was the Royal Canadian Mint.

The Royal Canadian Mint is located  only a stone throw away  from the Byward Market in downtown Ottawa.

American Embassy Building, Ottawa, Canada

After stopping by at our favourite cafe at the  Byward Market and  enjoying our afternoon coffee and treats, we strolled to the Canadian Mint. 

We passed by the American Embassy building.

Kuwait Embassy, Ottawa, Canada

We also passed by the Kuwait Embassy  and  other magnificent buildings.

We arrived at the entrance of the Royal Canadian Mint at around 3:30pm.

A display on the grounds of the Royal Canadian Mint

We made it in time to purchase our tour tickets to join in the last tour of the day.

Unfortunately, there were no cameras allowed during the tour therefore I did not have any pictures about the tour.

But I tried to take a few pictures outside the Royal Canadian Mint before we went into the building.

The Royal Canadian Mint, Ottawa

I liked the Canadian Mint building as it looked like a castle from the outside with  turrets.

We went through a thick set of doors and were led upstairs to the gift shop where we waited for our tour guide.  

The Gift Shop at the Royal Canadian Mint

While waiting , we had some time to look at  some of the coins made at  the Royal Canadian Mint.

The Canadian Mint melts down gold bars such as this one to make gold coins.

The tour of the Mint took about  an hour. 

The tour guide took us through the process of how gold and silver coins were made in the Mint including melting the gold bars.

The Mint in Ottawa produces gold/silver decorative coins such as these

We were given  a tour of the facility and  a lot of interesting and useful information .

Lots of hours spent on designing and crafting these beautiful foins

We learned that  there are two locations for the Royal Canadian Mint, the one we were visiting and another one located in Winnipeg.

The main difference between the two mints is that the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa makes beautiful, decorative  and commemorating coins whereas the Canadian Mint in Winnipeg makes the regular coins Canadians use daily.  

Some interesting information we learned on this tour :

1. To minimize the risk of robbery, there is another mint that produces paper currency at a non disclosed highly secretive location where nobody knows where it is!

2. We saw a display of coins and flags of numerous countries that employ the know how and technology of the Royal Canadian Mint which produces coins for them.

The tour of the Canadian Mint was an interesting and educational one!

 I now have a greater appreciation of the artistic work and efforts that put into making these beautiful coins!

R.T.

Royal Canadian Mint

Ottawa, Ont. Canada
Week of May 14, 2018

A Good Night Rest at Comfort Suite, Cheektowaga, NY State

Whenever we travel outside of our home city, we always look for  comfortable accommodations that  fit our criteria.

Lobby of the Comfort Suite where we stayed recently during our visit to Buffalo, NY State

We do not need to be at a 4 star hotel, but we do have certain requirements.

A spacious breakfast area at the Comfort Suite

The hotel needs to be:

- within a reasonable distance to the places where we wish to visit
-  providing free parking for guests
-  providing a nutritious complimentary breakfast
-  at a reasonable rate

I was happy to assign this task to my husband who did an excellent job in finding us the hotel during our recent trip to Buffalo in New York State.

A hot complimentary breakfast with hams and eggs was provided to guests

We stayed at the Comfort Suite which provided us with an excellent complimentary hot breakfast with ham and freshly cooked eggs as well as different types of yogurt and cereals.












We stayed in a spacious one bedroom suite. Though we did not request it,  there were two queen size beds in the room.

Sitting area in our 1 bedroom suite

It also came with a sitting area with a couch that could turn into a bed  if  there was a need to sleep an extra person.

How convenient!

A swimming pool was available for guests to enjoy 

With the advance of the computer technology, the booking for a hotel is much easier.

 However, we still need to do our homework and spend sometime to search online.

It was an easy drive from the hotel to downtown Buffalo. It only took about 20 minutes.

I am glad that we found a good hotel for our recent Buffalo trip; it did not cost us an arm and leg!




R.T.
A Recent Guest
Cheektowaga, NY
USA

A Great Visit at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Youngstown, NY, USA

After enjoying the original Buffalo wings at Anchor Bar Restaurant, we dove to visit another interesting place not far from where we were in the New York State - the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, at Youngstown.

Avenue of the Saints, entrance to Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, at Youngstown, NY

Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Lewiston, NY, USA

A beautiful place to visit, mediate and reflect the blessings and love of God

We heard of the Fatima miracle before, but we knew little about them as we are not of the Catholic faith.

Since this place was so close to where we were, we were determined to learn more about what had happened in Fatima, Portugal years ago.



The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima is located in Lewiston, New York State, north of Niagara Falls. Though we have visited the famous falls numerous times in the past, we were not aware of this shrine at all.


A generous couple donated 16 acres of their farmland in 1954 for the construction of the shrine.

The church started its construction in 1963 and it was was dedicated in 1965.

It is directed by the Barnabite Fathers.

It is a beautiful and tranquil setting with a number of buildings.





There are numerous statues of saints and bible characters as well as benches placed around the site of the shrine.









One of the eye catching ones for us was the statues of three children in front of the entrance to the shrine.

Those were the three children who beheld the visions in the village of Fatima in Portugal years ago.

The title basilica was conferred on the Lady of Fatima Shrine in 1975 by Pope Paul Vl.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima sits under a dome that is about100 feet in diameter and 55 foot high.

On top of the dome is the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. This statue is 13 feet high weighing ten tons, sculpted from granite from Vermont.

















We climbed up the flight of stairs outside the dome to the top of the basilica.

View of the Heart Pool from the top of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima

Once when we reached the top of the dome, we had an excellent view of the entire site.

We could see quite far from where we were and could imagine how beautiful this place looked when it was light up in the evening.

 The interior of the basilica was just as beautiful as its exterior and surrounding.

Interior of the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Lewiston, NY, USA

We were lucky enough to be there in time to take part in the 4p.m. mass in the basilica.

The 4pm mass was held in the main sanctuary.

One of the side chapels in the shrine.

After the mass, we also visited the smaller side chapels within the basilica.

A magnificent mural adorning the wall of one of the side chapels.

We took our time to look at the murals and artwork adorning the chapels and the walls around the buildings.

There was also a book store/gift shop in the other buildings, but by the time we finished visiting the smaller chapels, the store was already closed.

However, we were happy to find that the on site cafeteria was still open serving dinner to visitors. The cafeteria was spacious.

The view from the cafeteria was beautiful!
We had a good view of the  pond.

The cafeteria served delicious cabbage rolls.

We had dinner in the spacious cafeteria.
The food was quite good. I had cabbage rolls and my husband ordered fish and chips. The cabbage rolls were the best I had ever tasted. I went back to order a second serving!







The admission to the ground and the shrine is free. If we have brought a book with us, we could have easily spent an entire afternoon reading and enjoying this quiet and beautiful place.

Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima is a fabulous place to visit. We truly enjoyed our time there!




R.T.
Shrine of Our Lady of Fartima
Lewiston, NY State
USA