Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel in Montreal

16 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  6 minutes

© DXR/cc-by-sa-4.0

© DXR/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel (chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, “Our Lady of Good Help”) is a church in the district of Old Montreal in Montreal, Quebec. One of the oldest churches in Montreal, it was built in 1771 over the ruins of an earlier chapel. The church is located at 400 Saint Paul Street East at Bonsecours Street, just north of the Bonsecours Market in the borough of Ville-Marie (Champ-de-Mars metro station).   read more…

Bonsecours Market in Montreal

5 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Shopping Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Gribeco/cc-by-2.5

© Gribeco/cc-by-2.5

Bonsecours Market (French: Marché Bonsecours), at 350 rue Saint-Paul in Old Montreal, is a two-story domed public market. For more than 100 years, it was the main public market in the Montreal area. It also briefly accommodated the Parliament of United Canada for one session in 1849. Named for the adjacent Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, it opened in 1847. During 1849 the building was used for the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. The market’s design was influenced by Dublin‘s Customs House. Bonsecours Market was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1984.   read more…

Toronto in Ontario

18 November 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  28 minutes

Toronto skyline from Snake Island © Jchmrt/cc-by-sa-4.0

Toronto skyline from Snake Island © Jchmrt/cc-by-sa-4.0

Toronto is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,765,188 people (as of 2021) surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario, while the Greater Toronto Area proper had a 2021 population of 6,712,341. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.   read more…

University of Toronto

6 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Universities, Colleges, Academies Reading Time:  5 minutes

Hart House and Soldier's Tower © Taxiarchos228/cc-by-sa-3.0

Hart House and Soldier’s Tower © Taxiarchos228/cc-by-sa-3.0

The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen’s Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King’s College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada. Originally controlled by the Church of England, the university assumed its present name in 1850 upon becoming a secular institution. As a collegiate university, it comprises eleven colleges each with substantial autonomy on financial and institutional affairs and significant differences in character and history. The St. George campus is the main campus of the University of Toronto tri-campus system, the other two being satellite campuses located in Scarborough and Mississauga.   read more…

Portage la Prairie in Manitoba

24 September 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  17 minutes

Municipal Building National Historic Site © Amqui/cc-by-sa-3.0

Municipal Building National Historic Site © Amqui/cc-by-sa-3.0

Portage la Prairie is a small city in the Central Plains Region of Manitoba, Canada. As of 2016, the population was 13,304 and the land area of the city was 24.68 square kilometres (9.53 sq mi). Portage la Prairie is approximately 75 kilometres (47 mi) west of Winnipeg, along the Trans-Canada Highway (exactly halfway between the provincial boundaries of Saskatchewan and Ontario). The community sits on the Assiniboine River, which flooded the town persistently until a diversion channel north to Lake Manitoba (the Portage Diversion) was built to divert the flood waters. The city is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie. According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, Portage la Prairie has the most sunny days during the warm months in Canada. It is the administrative headquarters of the Dakota Tipi First Nations reserve.   read more…

St. John’s in Newfoundland

22 September 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  16 minutes

Cabot Tower on Signal Hill © flickr.com - Michel Rathwell/cc-by-2.0

Cabot Tower on Signal Hill © flickr.com – Michel Rathwell/cc-by-2.0

St. John’s is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. The city spans 446.04 km² (172.22 sq mi) and is the easternmost city in North America (excluding Greenland). Its name has been attributed to the belief that John Cabot sailed into the harbour on the Nativity of John the Baptist in 1497, although it is most likely a legend that came with British settlement. A more realistic possibility is that a fishing village with the same name existed without a permanent settlement for most of the 16th century. Indicated as São João on a Portuguese map from 1519, it is one of the oldest cities in North America. It was officially incorporated as a city in 1888. With a metropolitan population of approximately 212,579 (as of February 9, 2022), the St. John’s Metropolitan Area is Canada’s 20th-largest metropolitan area and the second-largest Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in Atlantic Canada, after Halifax. The city has a rich history, having played a role in the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John’s. Its history and culture have made it into an important tourist destination. St. John’s was referred to in Irish as Baile Sheáin (Johnstown), in the poetry of Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara (1715–1810), and among speakers of the Irish language in Newfoundland.   read more…

Kitchener in Ontario

13 September 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

Water Street © flickr.com - Allie_Caulfield/cc-by-2.0

Water Street © flickr.com – Allie_Caulfield/cc-by-2.0

Kitchener is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario, about 100 km (62 mi) west of Toronto. It is one of three cities that make up the Regional Municipality of Waterloo and is the regional seat. Kitchener was known as Berlin until a 1916 referendum changed its name. The city covers an area of 136.86 km², and had a population of 256,885 at the time of the 2021 Canadian census. The Regional Municipality of Waterloo has 575,847 people, making it the 10th-largest census metropolitan area (CMA) in Canada and the fourth-largest CMA in Ontario. Kitchener and Waterloo are considered “twin cities”, which are often referred to jointly as “Kitchener–Waterloo” (K–W), although they have separate municipal governments.   read more…

Distillery District in Toronto

1 April 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Living, Working, Building Reading Time:  12 minutes

© flickr.com - mark.watmough/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – mark.watmough/cc-by-2.0

The Distillery District is a commercial and residential district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located east of downtown, it contains numerous cafés, restaurants, and shops housed within heritage buildings of the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery. The 13 acres (5.3 ha) district comprises more than forty heritage buildings and ten streets, and is the largest collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America. The district was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1988. The Toronto Christmas Market has been an annual outdoor tradition run within the Distillery District since 2010. The market includes “Santa’s house”, an Indigo pop-up shop, pet photos with Santa, a Ferris wheel and themed entertainment each day. There are food vendors and dining locations that are popular tourist attractions. The 2020 edition of the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto. The event returned for its 2021 edition from November 19 to December 31 2021 under the new moniker “The Distillery Winter Village”.   read more…

Railway adventure trips with Rocky Mountaineer

8 January 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Hotels Reading Time:  9 minutes

Rocky Mountaineer with Rockies in the background © The Land/cc-by-sa-3.0

Rocky Mountaineer with Rockies in the background © The Land/cc-by-sa-3.0

Rocky Mountaineer is a Canadian rail-tour company in Western Canada that operates trains on three rail routes through British Columbia and Alberta. Rocky Mountaineer trains operate exclusively during the day to maximize scenic views, therefore, no sleeper service is offered. All trips include overnight stops at which passengers disembark and stay in hotels. As Rocky Mountaineer is primarily a railtour service, not an intercity passenger train, all journeys are end-to-end. Between their origin and destination, trains only stop for overnight layovers, and no passengers may begin or end their journeys at these stations. The one exception to these provisions is the First Passage to the West route, which has an intermediate stop at Lake Louise where westbound passengers may board and eastbound passengers may disembark. No tickets are sold solely for the Banff-Lake Louise portion of the trip. Trains only operate in the tourist season of April to October.   read more…

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