NEW YORK – What a great treat. Somehow, having visited New York City perhaps eight or ten times over the years, I’d never strolled across the Brooklyn Bridge. Until last Sunday. It wasn’t as warm as the day before, and there was a brisk wind. But what a huge treat. One of the great things about the walk is the accessibility by subway. I walked out of the City Hall subway station and it was maybe 10 metres to the start of the bridge walk going east to Brooklyn. It’s an absolutely glorious walk, maybe a couple of miles but Read more
Canada
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
It’s spring. Well, it’s almost spring, even though it feels like frickin’ January in Toronto. And that means folks are looking to bust out and hit the road. With summer holiday planning underway, more Canadians are looking at trips to Europe. The latest information from hotwire.com shows the top 10 places Canadians who use the site are looking to book. And what they’re paying. So here you go! The first spot is Toronto. No surprise given the financial clout and sheer size of the city. Average hotel room price on Hotwire? Just $83. Obviously the average guy or gal isn’t Read more
It’s a touch late for booking that trip to Dublin or Galway (or anywhere else in Ireland) for St. Patrick’s Day. On the other hand, there are great locations right here in North America to go green come Monday. I can’t think of many better places than St. John’s, Newfoundland, which seems more Irish to me than parts of Ireland. They’ll be having a grand old time in town on Monday, for sure. Also awesome would be Cape Breton or Halifax in Nova Scotia, where you’ll find a serious Irish influence and great dancing and music. Of course, you could always Read more
