Montreal skyline

We arrived in Montreal late on Saturday afternoon, tired and hungry. Our first shock
was discovering how little English people spoke!

I think that Montreal was the closest to an English city that we saw (that isn't meant as a
complement!). It didn't seem to have the design or planning that other places had. There
are some great parts to the city - the Old Harbour, The Basilica of Notre Dame and the
Olympic Stadium for example - but we never quite got on there. Perhaps we were just
tired as we only had two nights before moving on.

In a way Ottawa is more English than England with
the style of all the old buildings. It was very tidy
and clean - extremely well looked after as was all of
Canada that we saw. The people were courteous and
helpful.

The view over the river is spectacular and, if you get
the chance, you must visit the Museum of Civilisation.

Ottawa Parliament buildings

After 2 more nights it was off to Toronto. As you can see we weren't hanging around. I
suppose that Toronto is how most British imagine a North American city to be with lots
of Sky Scrapers. If you expect that to mean that it will be ugly you would be wrong.
The buildings are beautiful in their own right when they're done properly.

What Toronto is famous for I suppose is the Sky Dome (especially for baseball fans) and
the CN (Canadian National) Tower - arguably the tallest free-standing structure in the
world. Not a place to go if you suffer from acrophobia, otherwise an experience not to
be missed!

Our hotel from the tower! (Strangely enough you can't see Dawn!)

You can actually see the
curvature of the Earth from the
top of the tower - amazing!

Not so good is the view of the
smog that hangs around lake
Ontario.

The gold coloured building is a
bank. It's windows actually
contain gold so it's value must
change with the price of gold!

More Toronto

While in Toronto we made the obligatory trip to Niagra Falls. I'll
admit that I was a bit dubious. After all, these places rarely live
up to the hype. Although it was very busy it was certainly an
impressive sight - and to think that only a small proportion of the
water now goes over the falls because of the hydro-electric
power turbines. What must it have been like originally?

Waiting for the "Maid of the
Mist"

The American falls

The Horseshoe falls

A few miles down the road from Niagra to
Toronto there is a lovely little village called
Niagra on the Lake. If you go don't miss the
great fudge shop (and don't forget to send
us some back!)

The Maid of the Mist

After 3 nights in Toronto it was time for the main event - THE ROCKIES!

We flew to Calgary and then went down to Banff by coach where we stayed 2 nights then
on to Jasper for a further 2 nights before the coach took us to Prince George where we
took the train to Vancouver.

We wanted to see the mountains and as much wild life as possible. Neither disappointed
us. The herd of elk that wandered through the hotel car park in Jasper was a definite
highlight but the 3 brown bears were wonderful and some of the small mammals were so
tame. We missed out on moose - but what the heck!

I can't begin to describe the views so I'll leave it to the photos.

Click on a picture to view an enlargement

Crowfoot glacier

Frazer River

Medicine Lake

Peyto lake

Bow lake

Afriendly local inhabitant

Patricia Lake

If anyone suggests to you that a train journey through Canada is a wonderful idea
beware! The trip from Prince George to Vancouver took 15 hours on one of the
slowest, most uncomfortable trains I've ever been on. For about 5 hours the view
made up for it. While we were passing through the Frazer River valley we went close
to an area of forest fire. It was interesting to watch the helicopter swoop down to
the river to pick up water before dropping what appeared to be a pitifully small
amount on the flames but the destruction doesn't bare thinking about.

Vancouver skyline from Stanley Park

The general opinion of most people in our party was that they could quite happily
settle in Vancouver. There is something so relaxed about the atmosphere there.
It was a great place to end our Canadian adventure!

Looking down from Grouse Mountain