Three very different settings. Three great places to enjoy the bounty of Southwest Ontario. I recently spent a day in the London-St. Thomas area, checking out two fabulous craft brewing spots and a quiet, lovely winery I hadn’t heard about before. Ontario has fully embraced the craft beer scene, and Southwest Ontario has some of the best in the province. One of the newest ewest guy on the block is a sleek, attractive and already wildly popular spot on Richmond St. in London called Toboggan Brewing Co. Locals Ricky Doyle, who owns a wine agency, and Mike Smith, who owns Read more
Europe
Hungry Canadians should head for Halifax if they want to save. A new study by hotels.com and hotels.ca looked at the price of a days’ worth of food at hotels around the world and came up with some fun findings. In the past they looked at the cost of a club sandwich on the road, which I always enjoyed (the study, I mean, not the sandwich. Although a good club sandwich is a wonderful thing as long as you leave out the lettuce, mayo and tomato and skip the extra layer of bread). Now they’ve taken it further and figured Read more
Looking for a travel deal this summer? Look south. And way, way east. But not to the west coast of the U.S. A useful study from the folks at Trip Advisor finds that a three-day visit for two people to any of several great cities in the U.S. south is your best financial bet. If you’re looking overseas, you’re better off to consider the Far East. If you’ve got money to burn, on the other hand, try Seattle, Cancun or Zurich. The Trip Advisor study looked at the price of a four-star hotel (personally I’d study 3-star hotels if I Read more
Most everyone who goes to Europe wants to see London and the Louvre. Not to mention Rome. But there are so many great places to go that aren’t quite as obvious. So here are five of my favourite cities and countries you should check out on your next European trip. VALENCIA A very under-rated city, I think. You’ll find a huge beach fronted by lovely cafés serving all kinds of great seafood, including paella; a favourite in this part of Spain. I love the beach, but I think the city centre is even nice. Here you’ll find one of architect Read more
With the stroke of a pen, or, rather, with the stroke of a bunch of ballot votes in favour of legalizing gay marriage, Ireland has suddenly jumped into the thick of the worldwide travel conversation. Not only does the country look good by most of the world’s standards in terms of embracing different cultures, it stands to benefit greatly from a tourism standpoint. I don’t know how large the LGBT tourism business is worldwide, but if guesstimates are right that 10 per cent of the world counts itself as gay or transgendered or what have you, then it’s big. Very Read more
