OTTAWA – Great food. Sleek new hotels. And lively neighborhoods. Ottawa is a city that’s most definitely moving in the right direction. Here are five things you need to do on your next visit. Oh yeah, Ottawa’s legendary Tulip Festival runs May 12-23. PARLIAMENT HILL – I hadn’t visited our nation’s Parliament for at least 20 years. They offer wonderful tours, with fun stories about the history and architecture contrasted with very sobering areas, including the Memorial Chamber near the base of the Peace Tower. A few minutes watching the House of Commons is a fascinating experience, and the main Read more
cruises
A great Ontario getaway, and a smashing cruise offer. Star Travel columnist Kathryn Folliott has a couple of excellent bargains on offer in her latest Fare Deals column. One great deal she outlines is for significant savings on a cruise with Silversea ; a free suite upgrade and on-board spending credit worth up to $1,000 (U.S.) per suite. I was lucky enough to have a suite on a Silversea ship last year, cruising the Mediterranean. It was an outstanding experience, with a HUGE suite that gave us everything we needed. The bedroom was large and comfortable and the bathroom was Read more
CRUISING THE MEDITERRANEAN WITH SILVERSEA – The Sicilian town of Taormina is one of those places that struck a bell when I saw the name. But I had no mental image of it. My cruise ship, the incredible Silversea Silver Spirit (I miss it already) had it listed as a potential excursion during our 8-hour stop in Sicily the other day so I checked it out on google images (what did we do before google, I haven’t a clue) and thought, Wow. Then I got there and thought, “Double Wow.” The name comes from the Greek words for bulls head, Read more
VALLETTA, MALTA – Beautiful, golden buildings on hills above the blue sea. Intimate cafes and graceful public squares. Great beaches and some of the most beautiful churches in all of Europe. There’s a lot of reasons tourists come to Malta by the boatful. In addition to the above factors, there’s also the weather. Malta residents don’t even have central heating as the Mediterranean nation is only a stone’s throw from north Africa. I arrived here the other day not knowing quite what to expect. But I was wowed by ancient temples and fabulous, rich churches and great food and wine Read more
CRUISING THE MEDITERRANEAN ON THE SILVERSEA SILVER SPIRIT – A country I already loved. And a new one that might be just as awesome. I had the good fortune over the past few days to visit Slovenia, a country I first went to in 2009 as Travel Editor at the Star and fell in love with. This time I’m travelling with the Silversea cruise line; a fine and wonderful experience. Slovenia is a former part of Yugoslavia and is relatively small; crossable in a few hours of driving. But it’s got an amazing variety that’s the envy of Europe, or Read more
