Since we can’t travel much these days, I’m re-posting some prior blogs. This is from a great visit to New York City last year. BROOKLYN – “The view down here is nice, but I’m going to show a place almost nobody knows about.” Sheli Baez is escorting my wife and I around Brooklyn on a New York Times Journeys visit; a program based on the newspaper’s popular “36 Hours In” travel section stories, where readers are given a guide for the perfect day and-a-half in great destinations around the world. The New York Times Journeys are run by Urban Adventures, Read more
coffee
You can tell a lot about a place by the bulletin boards or the signs in the window of their local coffee shop. Are there are ads for organic soy milk? Goat yoga? A concert starring a KISS cover band? At the Pastry Peddler in Millbrook, a small community a few minutes southwest of Peterborough, the messages in the window seemed all about community; “Support local farmers.” “Thank a Quilter Day.” “Port Hope Fair.” I liked it already. And then I stepped inside and found beautiful, wood floors, soaring ceilings, bicycles hanging from the walls, local art on display, and Read more
KINGSVILLE, ONTARIO – Henry Noestheden and Cor Boon had hoped to start things slow. Maybe ease into their chocolate-making business a little, as a pair of guys aged 68 and 75, respectively, might want to do. But on their second day of business at ODG Chocolates (it stands for Old Dutch Guys) they sold one of their bird-shaped chocolates to a journalist who was heading to nearby Pelee Island and wanted to give a gift to a bird-loving author who spends her summers there. Yeah, a certain Canadian writer named Margaret Atwood. “She loved the bird so much she put Read more
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
I had a coffee with a former Torontonian living in Vancouver the other day. And it was refreshing to hear her talk about how much she loves T.O. I think I live in a fabulous, fabulous city. And I think it’s worth spouting off about now and then. So, with a nod to Drake’s recent callouts of Toronto as “The 6,” here are a half-dozen reasons to check out Ontario’s capital. A GREAT WATERFRONT: Notwithstanding expensive pink umbrellas and over-priced washrooms, our waterfront has come a very long way in the past ten years. There are wonderful parks near Harbourfront Read more
