06.08.08: Toronto

To take advantage of this wonderful sunny day we caught a sightseeing bus as early as possible. With a really entertaining guy we enjoyed the first part of our tour. :) Later on we changed from the bus into a boat to see skyline, harbour front and Toronto’s islands. After a delicious lunch we finished our tour by bus. The mix between old and new buildings in this metropolis is amazing!
Arrived at the last station we decided to walk back to our hotel to have a look in some shops. :)
The special on our last evening here in Canada was the musical “Dirty Dancing” in the renowned Alexandra Theatre.

05.08.08: Toronto

After a rich breakfast buffet in the hotel we packed all our staff in the luggage and carried them by streetcar (in German = Tram *gr*) to our last hotel in Toronto Downtown. Then we started a small sightseeing tour on the harbour front.
Now it is 6:30 pm and it’s raining cats and dogs that’s why we will go for a shopping tour in the big shopping mall in our hotel tower. -) Credit cards are a good invention!

04.08.08: St. Catharines - Niagara Falls - Toronto

Today we started early in the morning to be one of the first tourists at the Niagara Falls. Approx. 8:30 we arrived in Niagara Falls (this is also a town) and were very surprised to see the falls directly from the street. More than 168,000 m³ of water falls over the crest line every minute in high flow,and almost 110,000 m³ on average. It is the most powerful waterfall in North America.

On our way to Toronto we made a short stop in the cut little village Niagara-on-the-Lake and enjoyed the view over the Ontario Lake.
Arrived in Toronto we checked in at a 4 * Sheraton Hotel. After that we drove the last time to an Alamo rental car office to bring back the red Ford Focus. -(
Because of many recommends we had a look over this huge city. It was expensive but not worth the money.

03.08.08: Kingston - St. Catharines

Yesterday evening we booked a boat cruise trip to the "1000 Islands", which started today in the morning for 3 hours.

The islands stretch for about 80 km downstream from Kingston, Ontario and number 1,793 in all, range in size from over 100 km² to smaller islands occupied by a single residence, to even smaller uninhabited outcroppings of rocks that are home to migratory ducks. Once again we had luck with the weather and the trip was amazing.

After that we drove 400 kilometres to St. Catharines, located near the Niagara Falls which we will visit tomorrow.

02.08.08: Montreal - Kingston

Nothing to tell, we drove approx. 400 kilometers trough heavy thunderstorms.

01.08.08: Montréal

Montréal is not one of our favorite cities but we were lucky one's and there was the festival "Les FrancoFolies de Montréal". Already yesterday evening we enjoyed the great vibes - different kind of live music on many stages, sales stalls and interesting people all over down town. Not finding a hotel down town for friday evening was the only disadvantage...

31.07.08: Quebec (Île d'Orléans) - Montreal

30.07.08: Ottawa - Quebec

29.08.08: Ottawa

Starched with a rich and fresh breakfast in our little hotel (insider tip http://www.albertinn.com/) in downtown we started our 9 hours sightseeing tour through Canada's Capital. Here our points of interests: Parliament incl. Library by a guided tour and Parliament Hill with the most government buildings by a self guided tour, Basilica Notre-Dame, Bymarket, Bytown-Museum incl. the old watergates (by the way: Bytown is the old name of Ottawa), National Gallery of Canada, Courtyards and some Monuments. Unfortunately there was not enough time to visit all the interesting museums...

Can you imagine that we paid nothing for all this?! We spent only 1 dollar for a candle in the Basilica....

At 9:30 PM we marveled at the "Sound & Light Show" on the Parliament Hill. It was amazing! One more time we could see/hear that the Canadians are very proud of their country.

Official Lyrics of O Canada:

O Canada!

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

28.08.08: Huntsville - Algonquin Park - Ottawa

Our trip from Huntsville to Ottawa led us trough the Algonquin Provincial Park (7,630 square kilometres of forests, lakes, and rivers). We made 2 small hikking tours and discovered that the landscape is totally different to the one in the West. Due to the fact that we have only 9 days here in the East we decided to drive directly to Ottawa on the same day. Here we are now!!