From the tower to the track, Eastern Canada

In Canada, Inspiration, Our Journeys, Road Trips, The Americas, Trip-Types, World Travel by Janis2 Comments

The inspiration behind four cities, oh and a couple of towns…

It was time for us to visit Canada, we had embarked upon various road trips in the USA from our home in the UK, but decided that we wanted to experience a trip across the border into Mountie country.
 
Was it going to be so different?

We had got pretty close on our New England road trip in 2001.
 
So near yet so far...

So, to try and see as much as we could in our 2 week annual leave, we chose to fly into Toronto and out of Montréal.

Touring through Niagara Falls, Kingston, Ottawa & Québec City en route.

Gary - Back in 2001 - so near, yet so far.

The locations almost appear to be in a straightish line, but we opted to go for a loop.

So, if further inspiration were needed for us to embark on this trip, then here are just a few of our reasons why;

Destinations

Our chosen locations for the road trip were

  • Toronto (3 nights)
  • Niagara Falls (1 night)
  • Kingston (1 night)
  • Ottawa (3 nights)
  • Québec City (3 nights)
  • Montréal (3 nights)
The Toronto skyline from the Water, Canada

Scenery

  • Niagara Falls must go to the top of the list, watching the impressive force of millions of gallons of water pouring over the Horseshoe Falls.
  • We hoped to be able to drive through some of Canada’s rugged countryside.
  • Tour along the St Lawrence Seaway & the Thousand Islands up to Québec City.

Capital City of Ottawa

Visit Canada’s parliamentary hub of ‘Parliament Hill’.

Stroll along the Rideau Canal & its locks, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 2007.

- Find the Maman sculpture, a sister to the one outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain

Discover what the Byward Market had to offer.

Architecture

Visit the observation deck of the CN Tower, which held the record of the world’s tallest tower for 34 years.

Discover the fortified ramparts of Québec City and the historical streets and lanes that weave around the lower district of this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Adventures

  • I know it’s a bit clichéd but we are going to have to don the blue ponchos and jump aboard The Maid of the Mist.

A bit of home grown history

- Whilst in Québec City we wanted to visit the battlefields of Abraham’s Plains, where Major General James Wolfe (born in Kent, UK) defeated the French & unfortunately died.

He is buried in St Alfege Church in Greenwich (UK), in his family’s vault. This just happens to be the church my parents got married in and also my town of birth (a convoluted link, but a link nonetheless).

Weather

No guarantee of the weather, just hoped it wouldn’t get too cold leading into Autumn.

Sporting icons

We planned to visit the site of the 1976 Montréal Olympic Park, not UK’s finest medal haul, we came 13th.

Montréal F1 Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Île Notre-Dame. Well it wouldn’t be the same if one of our road trips didn’t include a motorsport reference.

Food

Poutine, not too sure what this was going to be like, but a combination of French fries, cheese curd and gravy, certainly makes a good pub snack.

Drink

Ice wine, no it isn’t just wine kept in a freezer, ice wine is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine.
Further research is obviously required, I’ll take one for the team and take on this challenge.

I likes a nice ice cold Molson too, appears to have become less popular in the UK now.

Other thoughts

  • It’s Gary’s birthday while we are in Toronto, we’ll have to find him a Brewhouse.
  • What we were particularly looking forward to, was finding out more about the Canadian/French connection. We love visiting France so it was going to be interesting to see how strong the French influence was.
  • We had also heard about Montréal’s underground shopping network, perhaps this also needs to be checked out further.

Points to note

  • To keep the cost down we picked our hire vehicle up from Toronto town, when we were leaving and then dropping it off at Montréal town when we arrived there. This sounds logical and straightforward……mmmm.

Inspired to create an Eastern Canadian Road Trip?

A country that has so much to offer, surely it makes sense...

Why not plan your stopovers on Booking.com?

Booking.com
The CN Tower, Toronto, Canada

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