Canada

In August 2009 we had two weeks in Toronto, with side trips to Quebec, Newfoundland and France!

	One weekend we caught the train from Toronto to Montreal and on to Quebec City, then flew back to Toronto. The following weekend we flew to St John's Newfoundland and drove down the Burin peninsula to Fortune, where we got the ferry across to St Pierre, a small piece of France in North America.
	Toronto has some impressive buildings, some are high-rise and others, like this one, are a most peculiar shape.  This is a museum on Bloor Street West.
	We ate out at some of the many great restaurants in Toronto, but one evening we had a 'picnic' of cheeses, salami and Canadian wine on our hotel balcony...........
	.... while watching an impressive sunset over the city.  The clouds were the tail-end of a hurricane which swept through earlier that evening, devastating small towns a little way to the north.
	We caught the train on the excellent VIARail network for the 5-hour ride to Montreal, where we had a walk round the old town, past this bronze street sculpture called 'Les chuchoteuses' (the gossips) by Rose-Aimée Bélanger.

	Then we caught the evening train to Quebec City.  The main landmark in Quebec City is Chateau Frontenac, which is reputed to be the most photographed hotel in the world - you can see why.
	Quebec is the only walled city in the Americas north of Mexico - this is Dauphine Gate, one of the old city gates.
	There are a lot of pretty, historic houses in the old city - this is the oldest restarant in Quebec, and the food is great .......
	... and very diverse, as you can see from this extract from the menu!  We had 'three fillets' of Elk, Bison and Waipiti, and Caribou casserole!
	There are some very original murals painted on the side of some houses in Quebec - it is hard to see where the real house ends and the imaginary one begins!

	The next weekend we flew to St John's, Newfoundland, hired a car and drove down to Fortune, a quiet little fishing village.  From there we caught the ferry to St Pierre island.......
	St Pierre is technically part of France, the currency is Euro and people speak French, except to tourists.  In the past it used to be a very busy cod-fishing centre which exported huge numbers of fish to Europe, but now there are hardly any cod left it is rather quiet.....
	There are many pretty weatherboarded houses in St Pierre town.
	We were due to leave on Sunday, but just then Hurricane Bill (described as a category 1 storm, with gusts up to 100km/hour) reached the Newfoundland coast and all ferries and flights were cancelled so we had to stay another day.

	We eventually returned to St John's, which is also a very interesting town with picturesque houses, including the Bed-and-breakfast where we stayed.
	Many of the restaurants specialise in seafood as you would expect in a fishing port, so we had to sample the lobster!