LES ILES DE LA MADELEINE, QUEBEC – I had a business call to make to Toronto and was on the phone with a co-worker. “How’s your trip,” he asked me. “It’s absolutely spectacular out here,” I said. I told him about the endless and glorious and empty beaches and the adorable towns and the wildly colourful houses and the incredible food and the utterly fabulous art and the local beer and the towering cliffs and the red rock coastline pockmarked with caves and carved into arches and the pounding surf and the gentle lagoons. I think I sounded like a National Read more
Boating
What a great way to see a great country. I just got back from an abbreviated bike and barge tour of Holland , a two and-a-half day, two night trip that took myself and 13 terrifically fun other folks to some of the most charming villages and small cities in The Netherlands. The trip was sponsored by Visit Holland and put together by a company called Cycle Tours , which organizes all sorts of trips all over Europe. I was sampling their “Top of Amsterdam” tour, visiting such places as Enkhuizen, Hoorn, Edam (wow!) and Volendam. We stayed at night Read more
MUSKOKA – I love a hotel where a general manager pitches in and gets his hands dirty. In the case of the Sherwood Inn up in Muskoka, it’s true in both a figurative and literal sense. I arrived with my Dad and a friend last week, only to see GM (he calls himself the ‘general manipulator”) Esa Paltanen in shorts and a t-shirt in the lobby. He’d been planting annuals that day and was planning to do so again the next day with a member of his family. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d prefer a GM in shorts Read more
Jim Byers The pretty village of Chester, Nova Scotia. NOVA SCOTIA – Drives in Cape Breton get most of the international attention. And deservedly so, with those plummeting cliffs and the ocean views and pretty villages. The drive from Halifax to the South Shore of Nova Scotia isn’t as dramatic as Cape Breton. But it’s drop dead gorgeous, and so easy. Whereas Cape Breton is several hours from Halifax and the Cabot Trail another hour beyond, the scenic route from Halifax to Lunenburg takes only an hour or two, depending on how much time you take gawking and snapping Read more
Jim Byers photo. Wave Hill Gardens, a magical area of The Bronx. THE BRONX, NEW YORK CITY – I was torn about what parts of New York to check out for the trip I took over the last few days. It seems there are a lot of stories around focussing on trendy new areas of Brooklyn. And talking about fun things to do in Manhattan and even Queens. But when the tourism board’s representative in Toronto sent me a note and pointed out some things to do in The Bronx, I was intrigued. Really? I used to cover the Blue Read more
