Sometimes my travels take me outside Niagara. Come along!
Beneath the waters of the Bay of Fundy lay sea caves carved by the Atlantic Ocean from the soft sandstone cliffs. You don’t have to go diving to explore these amazing hollows, you simply have to wait. Each day in a twelve hour cycle the tide goes out revealing the ocean floor and the beautiful…
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It was a rainy spring day, the kind tailor-made for an unrushed cozyafternoon tea. And Abigail’s Tea House in St. George, Ontario was the perfectspot to indulge in some hygge and cozy relaxation over High Tea. The welcoming green door on the corner of Main St. in the quaint littletown of St. George is impossible…
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I’ve had a fascination with and a long distance love affair with Prince Edward Island ever since I read Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books as a young girl. Her descriptions of the island and its many natural spaces have held my interest for decades. As fortune would have it I was able to visit this beautiful…
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With the sweet taste of Amapola still lingering on my tongue, I threw myself onto the day bed in the front verandah of my childhood home. As I often did on summer afternoons while others siestad, I pulled a classic from my father’s collection. What I didn’t realize at the time was the indelible impression…
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In Tuscany between Florence and Sienna you will find the prettiest tiny Italian Village tucked neatly behind stone walls. This is Montefioralle, a place that dates back to the 11th century where double stone walls were built in an elliptical shape as fortification against the marauders that existed in the Chianti area. Let me take…
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February in Canada brings some sunny days, but plenty of cold, often snow or at least rain of the freezing variety. Unable to escape to warmer climes means that we can find the tropics right here at the Gage Park Greenhouse in Hamilton, Ontario. This greenhouse is fairly new, having opened in March 2019. I…
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Just before my feet hit the soft white sand the pressure in my ears cleared. It was the kind of quiet rarely experienced on the surface of the planet. My eyes adjusted to the pale turquoise water, and I noticed the coral with fish swimming about unhindered, and uncaring of my presence. Walking upright, barefooted…
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Today’s Bloganuary prompt from WordPress is, What is something you wish you knew how to do. For me the biggest thing I wish I knew how to do would be to go back in time when international travelling was easier. Provided of course we don’t have to come back and live through all this madness…
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Bayfield Ontario is a quaint little village that sits perfectly on the shores of Lake Huron. Part of the Bluewater municipality, Bayfield has a population of about 1200 people, and the entire village was designated a heritage district in 1982. It has a long history belonging to early Canadian settlers who travelled here along the…
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When I was looking for places to stay in Bayfield, Ontario for our summer roadtrip along the shores of Lake Huron, one place kept popping up in my search, The Little Inn at Bayfield. The romantic notion of staying in the oldest inn in Ontario with its double verandahs and big old willow tree out…
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Have you ever skipped stones? A lazy day spent by the lake tossing stones and watching them skip on the surface of the water is a summer dream. It takes practice and many summers to perfect the skill. And though I’m not very good at it, I tried my hand at it in the Stone…
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“I hope this isn’t a sundown town.” She whispered quietly to him. Their hands rested together between them on the Caribbean blue vinyl front seat of their brand new 1958 Packard. Her thumb rubbed the back of his hand tensely as she spoke. The road ahead was dark. He lifted his hand away to rub…
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Antonio Merino sat in the dappled sunlight with his heart open for everyone to see. Pieces of painted rocks brought together in shapes on the wooded ground under a canopy of trees, and art created from natural elements existed in a symphonic cacophony of Antonio’s love, positivity, and joy. In my occasional search for Uli,…
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I don’t know Uli. I’ve never met him, though I wish I could. I have walked his stairs down the Niagara Escarpment in Hamilton, and his story fascinates me. There are plenty of stories surrounding Uli’s stairs. His name, Ulrich shortened, is sometimes not remembered, just the way he likes it. The lady I met…
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It was a beautiful sunny Tuscan day, the kind you dream about, or read about in books. Our driver wound his way along the Via Raccordo Autostradale on our way to Villa Le Corti in San Casciano in Val di Pesa. Set on 230 acres in the Chianti countryside about 25 kms out of Florence…
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This narrow door beyond the lavender was an inviting focal point for me in the garden at Villa Le Corti, the residence of the Principe Corsini and his family in Chianti Tuscany. The 230 acres of the estate set in the Tuscan landscape is splendid, but this garden door set in an ancient stone wall…
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The doors all over Florence, Italy are enormous heavy wooden doors that grace the façade of buildings and lead to fabulous courtyards tucked away from the bustle of the city. This magnificent door is on Lungarno Torrigiani which runs along the Arno river. This river that runs through Florence separates the neighbourhoods geographically, but the…
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I sat alone in a white wicker chair in the backyard of an ancient abbey overlooking the Tuscan hillside. There wasn’t a soul around. I swallowed. The kind of repetitive swallow that indicates a looming sore throat. Is it really sore? Will it get worse? I swallowed. Here I was on my third day of…
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Life with Alegria 