GREY COUNTY, ONTARIO – Meat loaf on a homemade bun and a local salad with microgreens. Wild Ontario mushrooms coated with panko crumbs and crushed salt and vinegar chips. And tasty ciders made with crisp Ontario apples. I recently spent three days hiking and kayaking around Grey County, then making up for the exercise with some of Canada’s tastiest food offerings. I came away hugely impressed with the depth and quality and variety of the offerings. Up and down the county, from casual diners in Flesherton to fine dining establishments in Meaford and Thornbury, this might be the next Ontario Read more
Ontario
Canada’s 150th birthday is all but wrapped up. It’s been a truly fantastic year all around, with great celebrations, parties, festivals and more from sea to sea to sea. I’m happy to have done by small bit by creating this website and celebrating the best country I know in my own way. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have! CANADA’S 150 BEST – A PRELIMINARY LIST TOP SPOTS SO FAR (not in order of preference!) 1. North of Lake Superior 2. Winnie the Pooh 3. The Icefields Parkway 4. Saskatoon 5. Ottawa 6. The Calgary Stampede 7. Read more
Pretty cool report the other day from hotels.com showed that Toronto is now the third most booked international city for U.S. travellers. The report, which analyzed bookings on hotels.com, found that U.S. travel types booked the most rooms in London, followed by Paris. Toronto was number three, moving ahead of Rome. Which is pretty cool. After Rome, in position five, was Vancouver, followed by Tokyo, Hong Kong, Montreal, Barcelona and Niagara Falls. It’s a not a definitive study in that it only takes into account bookings on one website. But it’s encouraging for Toronto and Canadian tourism types, I’d think… Read more
Sex on the Beach is apparently more than just a cocktail for Canadians. A great new study by the folks at Expedia.ca finds that 22 per cent of Canadians surveyed admit to “getting frisky” on the sand while on holidays. Which should put the lie to that stereotype of button-down, buttoned-up Canucks, right? Actually, the provincial breakdown is pretty interesting. A full 28 per cent of Quebeckers say they’ll get down on the beach, while a pretty sizeable 25 per cent of Ontario folks said they do the same. Folks in British Columbia may think they’re all trendy and cutting-edge Read more
Canada has a new five-diamond hotel. And it’s a local success story. The American Automobile Association and Canadian Automobile Association last week quietly released their new list of top-rated hotels and restaurants in Canada and the U.S., and it gave the (relatively) new Four Seasons hotel in Toronto a coveted five-diamond rating. That brings the number of Canadian properties with five-diamond status to five in Canada: the Four Seasons in Toronto’s Yorkville area, the Ritz-Carlton Toronto downtown, the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal, the Four Seasons in Whistler, B.C. and the Shangri-La in Vancouver. Which means Ontario is the only province with Read more
