And They’re Off

This is a travel blog. Generally it deals with my travel. But for the next two weeks I’ll be trying something different.

Jan booked a river cruise on the Rhine, from Basel to Amsterdam, with her aunt. At least that was the plan, before drought resulted in very low water levels on the Rhine. Fortunately they are still going on a cruise, rather than being bussed everywhere, but we aren’t sure about the details. I’m looking forward to seeing how this works.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First they need to get to Europe, starting with Paris.

And we’re off

Low water on a river cruise is not a good omen. And then I gave them passes for the lounge in Ottawa, but after they checked in and cleared security …

Just pretending to cry … I think

Fortunately they knew that the lounge in Montreal was open, and recently renovated. Unfortunately lots of other people had the same idea.

90 minute queue for the Montreal lounge

The 90-minute wait meant they would have got to the lounge about ten minutes after their plane departed. This calls for extreme measures.

Plan B

Fortunately, the really important things (I’m talking about the plane) worked out, and after a six your flight with perhaps an hour of sleep, they arrived at CDG, cleared customs and headed for the hotel. It was still early, and their room wasn’t available (of course it wasn’t) so they wandered around Paris for a few hours and grabbed a baguette sandwich and cappuccino. Other than being tired, that doesn’t sound bad at all. Things are looking up.

Paris

They also enjoyed some of the many small parks in Paris.

More Paris

Doesn’t appear to be too crowded at all. Another good sign.

Sharon in Paris

The hotel was ready before the official 2:00 pm check in time and they decided that a little quiet time would be a good idea, no matter what the conventional wisdom says. After their rest, they did a little more touring as they headed over to the Vedettes de Pont Neuf for a late afternoon cruise on the Seine.

Notre Dame

It’s nice to see a city that encourages bio diversity.

And then it was time for the cruise, with a little bubbly to help with the jet lag.

Santevia

Then it was a leisurely stroll back to the hotel, stopping for dinner along the way (salade chèvre chaud for Jan and soupe au l’onion for Sharon). Now they are hoping for a good night’s sleep so they will be ready for their 11:00 am tickets to the musee d’art moderne tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Cottage Country

We were pleased to be invited to visit Wendy and Stu’s cottage this weekend. We arrived late Friday afternoon, and after getting settled, we headed down to the dock for the “hour of happiness”.

The hour-of-happiness on the dock

It had been cloudy earlier in the day, but as we enjoyed our beverages, things started to clear. As we relaxed on the dock, we were treated to stunning sunset views.

We spotted all kinds of interesting cloud shapes – everything from a giant axe, to a fire breathing dragon, and finally a flying goose.

Flying goose

The lake is on the Canadian Shield, so the landscape is rugged with regular outcroppings of granite.

Granite

Every year, Wendy uses one of the old tree stumps as a flower pot.

Organic flower pot

It has been a wet year, so there were a number of very interesting mushrooms in the woods.

Mushrooms
More mushrooms

Here is the cottage.

The cottage

There is also a screened-in gazebo with a gas fireplace.

The gazebo

The end of the dock shows the directions, for those who can’t figure out directions from looking at the sun.

For the directionally-impaired

On Saturday, we headed into Bancroft, which is the nearest town. It has a local microbrewery, with very tasty ales.

Bancroft Brewery – flight of local beers

And here is the obligatory group photo.

Group photo

We’re getting close to travel season, so before too long I’ll be posting more often.

Summer … When You’re Retired

The dream…

Relax under the oak
A cool beverage after a swim

The reality…

The trees were dying … they had to go
Digging out the roots
Planting the next generation of greenery

Very soon we will be able to get back to the dream part.

Toronto

We’re trying to include some local-ish trips in our travels. You know, change things up a bit! This year I started following the Munk Debates, and we decided to attend this year’s spring debate in Toronto in person. We made it into a mini vacation and took the train rather than drive. No high-speed trains here (yet … fingers crossed) but we still enjoy traveling by train whenever we can. We certainly aren’t about to subject ourselves to downtown Toronto traffic if we can possibly avoid it.

Via Rail to Toronto

The debate was interesting, and well worth the trip. The essence of the question was, should America continue trying to act as the world’s policeman, or would the world (and the U.S.) be better off if it would mind it’s own business and stop throwing it’s weight around. I’m paraphrasing here, but you probably get the idea. Both sides of the debate made legitimate and interesting points. But occasionally, both sides were completely clueless. Neither side seemed to realize the world has moved on, and returning to the old status quo isn’t one of the options on the table. But what do I know? These are the experts…

But that isn’t what this blog is about. It’s a travel blog, and this was a chance for us to get away for a few days. Spring is further along in Toronto than it is in Ottawa, and the trees are coming into bloom.

Tree in bloom

We stayed in Toronto for two nights. We had a lovely visit with Anne and Sharon, but with two days in the city, we still had time to kill. The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) had an exhibit of photographs by Paul McCartney that Jan was interested in seeing. These were taken in 1963-64, just as The Beatles were rising to fame, so they provide a fascinating snapshot in time. Apparently he misplaced the negatives for decades, and only recently rediscovered them. They are well worth a look if you have the chance.

Our hotel was a half hour walk from the AGO so we headed over. There was an interesting sculpture outside the gallery called the Couch Monster, apparently inspired by the story of Dumbo the Elephant. Several couches were “sacrificed” to create the early mock-ups of the sculpture. I quite like it.

Art Gallery of Ontario
Couch Monster

The price for a season pass was only a few dollars more than the price of a single ticket, so we opted for the pass. That meant we could have multiple visits, so before catching our train home today, we went back for a second visit. These caught my eye.

From the Art Gallery of Ontario

Across the street from the AGO I spotted this unusual building.

Mersivity

I was curious. Of course I was curious. Turns out it is a UofT student led initiative exploring eXtended Reality (XR) called … wait for it … Mersivity. Cool idea … I think. Certainly a cool piece of art. If you are a mathematician, that is.

On our way to catch the train I had to stop for this iconic Toronto image. Looks a lot like Auckland … or Seattle … or Las Vegas, now that I think of it. But this one is Toronto.

CN Tower, with the Canadian flag in the picture

Then it was time for our train ride home.

Homeward bound

Home

Typically, I only post when we’re traveling. This is a travel blog. But sometimes I make an exception. I looked out our back door tonight as the sun was setting and saw this.

Home

Twenty minutes earlier it looked rather blah. Twenty minutes later it was dark. Timing is everything.

This is just the beginning of the prime season here. I’m looking forward to enjoying the summer.