NEW YORK – Had a chance to spend a couple days in The Bronx the other day, which was terrific. But I also managed some time in Manhattan, taking in the scene in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side. There are few places more cool to hang out on a warm spring day than Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The tulips were a blaze of pink and red and the cherry trees were blossoming and the sky was blue and folks were suntanning on the grass and the jump-rope folks were out showing people how to skip. I Read more
Architecture
FINGER LAKES OF NEW YORK – We have wineries. And we have lakes. But I think it’s fair to say Ontario doesn’t have anything to quite match the total Finger Lakes package in upstate New York. Only an hour or so east of Buffalo, which means maybe three hours from downtown Toronto, you’ll find gorgeous lakes surrounded by hills covered with pretty vineyards ahttps://jimbyerstravel.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpnd thick forests. Not to mention tremendously attractive small towns and stately white homes. The town of Geneva is one of those solid if not hugely beautiful towns. Probably it’s seen better days. But the surrounding area Read more
JIM BYERS PHOTO. The Richardson Olmsted Complex near downtown Buffalo is being restored and turned, in part, into a boutique hotel and architecture centre. BUFFALO, NEW YORK – Mea Culpa. For years, as I recall, the head of media/public relations for Buffalo Tourism had been bugging me to come on down and check things out. I envisioned cool architecture and chicken wings and a nice Frank Lloyd Wright building Ihad heard about. I covered the Buffalo Bills off and on for the Star’s sports section in the early 2000’s, but I didn’t have a strong mental image of the city in Read more
JIM BYERS PHOTO Colaneri winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake looks like something out of Tuscany. Great wines, too. NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE – A wonderful B and B with a Florentine co-owner. An organic Italian gelato place run by the same woman and her husband. And a winery where they make their vino in the Italian style in a series of buildings that look like they were shipped from a sleepy hillside in Tuscany. Sure, you can go to this pretty southern Ontario town and indulge yourself in British (and faux British) hotels and plays and bars. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you also Read more
CHICAGO – This is a town – and a country – that knows how to throw a party. Folks attending the International Pow Wow (U.S. tourism) event here were the recipients Sunday of the kind of treatment usually accosted only to members of the International Olympic Committee. First came a morning reception at the top of the John Hancock Tower/observatory, a 94 th and 95 th floor extravaganza with killer views of this magnificent city on the shores of Lake Michigan. When you’re up here this high, you get a real sense of how wonderful a job they’ve done of Read more
