Articles tagged with: Traveling In Canada
Of a Flight Back Home
The trip back home was tiring. It always is. I sometimes dream of flying door-to-door but it’s not going to happen as long as we live in Ottawa. Our airport sucks: it is barely bigger than a Wal-Mart and it has very few direct international flights. We always have to transfer in the U.S. or in Toronto.
In The Woods
On the weekend of November 11, I packed a small bag, left my computer and my city life behind and headed to Bourget, a small village in Eastern Ontario. It only took a forty-minute drive to get there but as soon as we hit Vars, we entered another world of farms, straight roads and no traffic. Welcome to the countryside.
Watson's Mill
When I first came to Canada, I used to laugh at what locals considered “historic”. These stores boasting to have been in business for a mere twenty years and these “old” buildings dating back to the 1950s didn’t exactly impress me. The apartment I grew up in in France was at least a century older!
This is not to say that there aren’t interesting pieces of history in the region—Watson’s Mill is one example, and it’s actually pretty old, dating back to 1860.
Summer is Over
Standing on the lakeshore, wind blowing in my hair and producing whitecaps on the lake, the horizon just a flat line in the distance, I felt like I was at the seaside. Only the heady iodine smell of seaweeds was missing.
Barrie and Balm Beach
Balm Beach, the first beach we stopped at, seemed to be stuck somewhere in the 1980s with a few old-fashioned beach toys stores along the sand. Feng and I bought an ice-cream and a drink and the total came to $1.75—not quite Toronto prices! On the beach, people played volley-ball or were reading and not a single person had a cell phone in hand. Canadian take the outdoors seriously and most cars in the parking lot either had a canoe strapped to the roof or a boat in tow.
Niagara-on-the-Lake
Niagara-on-the-Lake is much quieter than Niagara Falls and most tourists are here to enjoy historic buildings and good wine, not haunted houses and family entertainment. Antique shops, art galleries and golf courses replace fast food joints and touristy attractions.
Niagara Falls, Ontario
The Sunday was gorgeous and drove to Niagara Falls. It was my fourth visit there (last time was in the middle of the winter) and definitely a busy time of the year for the region.
The contrast between the tacky main strip and the beauty of the falls always amazes me.
Deep River, Ontario
During our Labour Day Week-End trip to rural Ontario, we spent a couple of night in Deep River, a small community located on Highway 17, between Pembroke and Matawa, opposite the Laurentian Mountains. The population is only about 4,000, and most residents work in the nearby Chalk River Nuclear Research Laboratory, 10 km away. But it is still a small Canadian town, with a few dirt roads, dense patches of forest and wild animals.
