Fresco Ottawa Design Centre
This bilingual region of one million straddles the Ottawa River, two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, and two cities,
Ottawa and
Gatineau.
Ottawa is known, foremost, for being the national capital with its Parliament, Supreme Court, Archive, Mint, the
National Arts Centre and a huge variety of
museums,
galleries and
arts festivals. The downtown
ByWard Market is the popular meeting place with many shops, restaurants and a farmers’ market. Many people also think of the region’s natural attractions: such as the
Gatineau Hills, its three rivers and of course the Rideau canal, a world heritage site and, in winter, the world’s longest skating rink.
The National Capital is also a premiere high-tech centre of Canada. It has more than 1800 advanced technology companies employing more than 76 000 people. Ottawa also has more engineers, scientists and PhDs per capita than any other city in the country.
The National Research Council (NRC) and the
Communications Research Centre (CRC) are two the of country’s principal research centres.
Carleton University and the
University of Ottawa have a combined population of nearly sixty thousand undergraduate and graduate students.
Thanks to its natural beauty, amenities and prosperity Ottawa is rated as one of the top cities in the world for its quality of life. Ottawa residents are famed for their love of outdoor activities: cross-country skiing, whitewater rafting and canoeing, cycling on an extensive region of
cycle paths or swimming at one of a large variety of clean beaches.
The capital’s manageable size, affordability and range of activities makes Ottawa a very family-oriented city. It was recently rated the least expensive major city in which to live in North America. Its schools are excellent and there are a wide variety of educational options in both official languages.
Ottawa is just two hours’ drive from trendy
Montréal and four hours from
Toronto or historical
Québec.