It is said that when you visit the garden you linger between heaven and earth.

Within a space of six acres there are 42 rooms and halls and 700 meters of covered walks connecting them. There is a Small Fairly Isle by a lake that is filled with gold fish.

The landscapes are miniature but natural, and include a mountain, a forest, a lake, pine and bamboo groves, ancient trees, and many intimate gardens.

The garden has had different owners since it was constructed at the end of the 16^th century in the Ming Dynasty. It is divided into four sections and the oldest is the Central Garden, which features buildings around a pond. The second owner, Liu Shu, had calligraphy carved in many of the corridors.

An artificial mountain called Shi Ping Peak is in the Eastern section. During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) twelve tall limestone rocks were added to the garden, symbolizing mountains. The Auspicious Cloud-Capped Peak, which is a massive piece of limestone from Lake Tai, has become the centerpiece of the garden.

There are ancient trees in the middle section.

The Celestial Hall of Five Peaks is the largest hall in the garden. Musical instruments are played in the Worshipping Stone Pavilion.

A small courtyard has a forest made of stone. There is mosaic pavement and a couple hundred latticed windows of different styles.

Wisteria grows over the pergolas by the lake.

As you move from structure to structure, you appreciate the carefully composed scenes for the garden is renowned for the artistic ways it treats these spaces.

Other Chinese gardens:
The Master of Nets Garden, Suzhou, China
The Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou, China
Yuyuan Garden, Shanghai, China

By Sylvia Fanjoy

Photo credits Sylvia Fanjoy

© Riding the buses 2013

Uganda is a land-locked country in East Africa. It is said to be one of the poorest countries in the world and it was certainly very poor where we were travelling. Generally there was no running water, no power, the toilet just a hole in the ground. Towns were little more than roadside stops for trucks that were travelling through to the Sudan. The roads themselves were narrow and rough.

The country has seen a lot of tragedy, both under the dictator Idi Amin and during the civil war with the Lord’s Resistance Army. But the people are very friendly and quite willing to discuss the past. There were few tourists, at least where we were.

Murchison Falls National Park is the largest park in Uganda. I have been on other safaris so seeing the “big five” (buffalo, elephant, lion, leopard, and rhinoceros) was not particularly important although I have always had a special love of elephants so always like seeing them. This park has four of the “big five”; there are no rhinos.

There certainly are many hippopotamuses and we passed them as well as giraffes and elephants just on our drive in.

And there are all kinds of birds including the rare shoebill stork.

After we arrived, we took a cruise down the Nile to see the falls. There were lots of crocodiles and hippos in the water and along the shoreline but I probably would never had noticed them if it were not for the guide who seemed to spot everything. You can take a walk around the falls and I would certainly do that another time.

The Paraa Lodge where we stayed was amazing and the service and food were great. We all could have stayed another day just to lounge around the pool, which looks over the Nile. After dinner there was this fantastic show of dancing, singing and music. They got us all up dancing too. When I went to bed, someone had pulled the mosquito netting around my bed and I felt very well taken care of.

We were up super early the next morning to see the sun rise and go on a safari. We used our own pickup trucks and drivers (we sat in the back so visibility was good)  so it was inexpensive. There were few others in the park.

We saw giraffes, impalas, baboons, water buffalo, crocodiles, hippos, warthogs, and lots of monkeys. Someone saw a leopard in a tree. We didn’t see a lion, which was disappointing to some. We watched the sun rise over this very beautiful landscape.

The other tourists we met were just about as interesting as the wildlife. Not the sort of people you would run into every day at home.

Altogether, it was a very good trip.

By Jessica Sunter

Photo credits Jessica Sunter

© Riding the buses 2013

Asians in general seem to place great importance in spiritual experiences and this month we are again featuring a spiritual destination in India, this time Rishikesh. For those of us not associated with organized religion, however, it can be difficult to find a suitable spiritual destination. Jenna’s mother is working to change that.

Jenna was a yoga instructor, wife and mother. She was also a very spiritual person. Once, when travelling in South Korea, she came upon one of their many ‘barefoot parks’ where people walk on rounded stones in natural environments to relieve stress and pain. Certainly, walking barefoot in a holy place is customary in many religions. Jenna thought such a walk was a great idea and had thoughts of building one in Canada. Instead her mother and others are raising funds to build Canada’s first reflexology footpath in a Toronto park in her name.

I told Jenna’s mother about the reflexology labyrinth I had visited with my daughter Jessica at the Coastal Maine Botanical gardens last year.  It’s in the Lerner Garden of the Five Senses—a one-acre section that is all about touching, smelling, tasting, hearing, and seeing. There are ponds with frogs, raised beds, stones chiseled to make sound, a meditative garden. There are even fairy houses that children build, much like those spirit houses in Thailand. And there are sitting areas where visitors can pause and listen. I hope that’s how Jenna’s barefoot path in that Toronto park evolves, if only they can raise the funds that are needed .

Jenna’s mother told her grief counselor about the Maine garden and he said that maybe he could organize a trip there with some of his clients. Jenna’s mother said that if he did that she would like to go too.

It would be a spiritual journey for Jenna.

Sylvia Fanjoy
Sylvia@ridingthebuses.com

An update on Jenna’s barefoot path in the Toronto Star

Photo credits Sylvia Fanjoy

© Riding the buses 2013

Q: How did you travel around the country?

A: After some very useful advice from a Colombian colleague of mine, we decided to take a couple of flights within the country because of the distances involved.  We travelled to more remote locations such as Salento and Santa Rosa by local bus, which was super cheap, clean and easy to use.

In Cartagena, we spent most of the week wandering around the city by foot.

We rented a car in Cartagena to travel to Tayrona National Park, based on the advice of a very helpful local waitress, who informed us how difficult it would be to get to the park on the bus.

Given that I could drive standard, I was the designated driver down the Caribbean coast.

Q: What was it like driving a car there?

A: The roads were well maintained and deserted between towns, but driving through the towns was quite the adventure, navigating between other cars that didn’t really obey any traffic laws (passing on blind corners), buses, donkey carts, and pedestrians crossing the road at any time. We only had one government checkpoint on the way, and they were very polite and waved us through.

Q: Where did you start?

A: We flew to Bogotá, the capital. A friend of one of the other people I was travelling with picked us up at the airport and showed us around for a couple of days. Although the city is almost on the equator, it was not warm  because of its high elevation, 2600m above sea level.

Q: What did you do in Bogota?

A: We spent a day visiting the Gold Museum (5 floors of gold), the Botero Museum, the Iglesia Santo Domingo, walking around Bolivar Square in the old city, listening to street musicians, and taking the cable car up to the city’s highest point.  There is lots of history in Bogota (although not a lot of English so we got to practice our Spanish).

There is this crazy restaurant called Andres that is so big that it’s easy to get lost in. There’s a saying that “if you haven’t been to Andres, you haven’t been in Bogota.”

 We visited the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira, which is an hour north of Bogota. For a few hundred years it was a salt mine and is was recently converted into a cathedral. It’s massive. They hold a mass there on special occasions. It’s very different, a huge attraction for tourists and Colombians, but its cold and not inviting.

Q: Did you feel safe in Bogota?

A: There is a lot of police presence. We felt comfortable and walked around at night in the upper side. No one bothered us and the people were super friendly and welcoming. Every Sunday they shut down the streets in the upper town for cycling and the activity brings everyone out on the streets.

Q: So was your next stop Salento?

A: Yes, because we wanted to visit the Valley of the Palms, with the tallest, skinniest palm trees in the world. Salento itself is very interesting, full of colours. We stayed at a hacienda run by American students who went to visit and stayed indefinitely.

We rented horses to visit a coffee plantation where they still pick coffee by hand.

The outfits these ranchers are wearing (above) are totally authentic. They are amazing. I think Salento is keeping the rubber boot industry in business. The area is isolated but very beautiful and relaxing.

 Q: From there you travelled to Santa Rosa de Cabal?

A: Santa Rosa is a mountain town near the Cocora Valley on the western slope of the Central Andres. We stayed in a hostel there with the nicest people ever. They took us in their pickup truck to a thermal bath and had friends take us on a hike to waterfalls.

Q: So from there you went to Cartagena?

A: We flew to Cartagena on the Caribbean’s northern coast. It’s a walled colonial city 1,000 km north of Bogota. It was nice to walk along the wall of the old city that was built by the Spaniards in the 1600s.

This is Caribbean style in Cartagena. The woman says, “Take a picture of my outfit (fruit hat included). [Picture taken] “Now give me money.”

The colours of Cartagena are remarkable. There is a European feel, with cobblestone streets and huge cafes that cater to tourists with more money.

We took nighttime strolls and this was one of many ice cream nights.

On our last night there we decided we had to have a horse carriage ride, dinner in the old city, and drinks at Café del Mar on the wall. Then we added on the Havana salsa club all of a sudden it was 3am.

We rented a car and went to surrounding areas including the Mud Volcano, which is a 40-minute drive from Cartagena. There’s Playa Blanca, which is very touristy. There’s lots of kite surfing along there but it’s a minimum of 8 hours of lessons before getting on a board. So we decided to get a beer and just watch the guys at sunset. They flew crazy high; it was amazing to watch.

Q: So was your last major stop Tayrona National Natural Park?

A: Yes, it’s on the Caribbean, 34 km from Santa Marta, and as I said we drove a car there. The drive was absolutely beautiful.

Park Tayrona is hard to get to because you need to take several buses and then hike in. We picked up an Aussie, which was good because we didn’t know where we were going. We parked the car just inside the main entrance.

The hike in takes about 1.5 hours. We lucked out when we picked up another tourist -–a British traveller—who had already been staying in the park for a few weeks. He guided us all the way to the most popular beach, otherwise we definitely would not have found it as it required hiking through the forest and along several other beaches, without any overtly obvious signs as to where to go. This beach attracted young people from all over the place.

There are haciendas where you can eat and drink. You can sleep in a tent or a hammock and there are a few huts. The huts and hammocks were sold out so we stayed in a tent.

A lot of Argentinians go there. There is beach after beach after beach; some deserted, some for families. The scenery is very beautiful. There is lots of wildlife (spiders, birds, lizards) and not too much to do but just tan and hang out. We spent 2 days there.

Q: What part of the trip did you like the best?

A: There was no favourite part. We all really liked the variety.

Related articles:
Santa Rosa de Cabal, Colombia
Hiking the Valle de Cocora, Colombo in rubber boots
Having a mud bath in a volcano in Colombia

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Photo credits Stephanie Jack

© Riding the buses 2013

A television program that I watch quite faithfully—House Hunters International—has led me to believe that the “cottage” I have been looking for can be found In Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The climate there seems perfect, the supply of historical homes plentiful, the price could be just right, and the setting exactly what I’m looking for. And besides, Merida is only 36 km (22 mi) from the sea. Although Merida has an airport, I could get a direct flight for probably a more competitive price to Cancun and bus to Merida from there.

So in March I told my family that I was off again, this time to check out buying a winter cottage, a simple place that I could shut down for several months each year just like we do with summer cottages at home.

I must say Merida ticked all my boxes.

 Merida is gorgeous!

• It has one of the largest “Centro Historico” districts in all of the Americas, filled with Spanish colonial architecture and homes just waiting to be renovated.
• At its heart is the Large Plaza filled with laurel trees and benches—so Mexican.
• Around the Plaza the buildings are not only historical, they are fabulous in design and all quite different. One such building is the oldest cathedral in Mexico.
• Merida is nicknamed the ‘white city’, perhaps because it is so incredibly clean. While it is impeccable, it’s also real. Just head out to the boisterous outdoor market, only a short walk from the Plaza.

Merida is culturally interesting

• Merida is the capital of the State of Yucatan and several of the mansions that grace the city have been turned into museums.
• Every day there is a free event in the historic centre and each Sunday the streets around the Main Plaza are closed for a live music concert.
• Merida has a large Maya population and is close to important Mayan ruins.

 Merida is visitor friendly

• There is a free monthly bilingual (Spanish and English) tourist guide for visitors called Yucatan Today and a companion website.
• There are free walking tours around the historic centre.
• Maps and brochures of city highlights are readily available and attractions  well marked.
• There are some great outdoor restaurants.

And that’s just the start. The expats do not seem to be hidden within a gated community but integrated throughout the historic centre. The Merida English Library is the place where expats meet and become informed. Every week they have walking tours of houses and gardens  that take you through restored homes from various eras and through some that are in the process of being renovated.

Some houses are modest and some grander. I am looking for a very modest one but a space that I can make my own, where I can leave paperbacks and board games just like at a Canadian summer cottage.

The library offers three-day intensive courses to help a potential buyer estimate how much a property should cost, what you’ll probably pay for renovations, how to find an architect and materials, and the importance of obtaining building permits.

I was only in Merida for a week and that was not enough time to check everything out. So I will return. And I have noticed that my desires are not quite as modest as before I went. A little dipping pool in a Spanish courtyard would be nice. And maybe I should get a place that has those  antique tiled floors. And my kids and grandkids would all like to visit and if everyone comes for Christmas then I would need to have enough space. And…

By Sylvia Fanjoy

Photo credits Sylvia Fanjoy

© Riding the buses 2013

Between 750,000 and 1,200,000 people speak Mayan in the Yucatán Peninsula, which includes the States of Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo. The Maya, however, are not a single ethnic group and, in fact, speak many different languages.

Only a few of the Maya in the Yucatan seem to wear the traditional dress.

When I travelled by bus to the small fishing village of Celestun, 96 km from Merida, I saw many Maya who were living in traditional thatched-roof houses (the above photo was taken through a dirty bus window).

The Maya civilization flourished in the Yucatán Peninsula for more than a thousand years. Without having any metal tools, they built many elaborate temple-pyramids and ceremonial structures, the most famous being in Chichén Itzá and Uxmal. They were also skilled farmers.

The Maya have been called the serpent people, the symbol of water and lightning.

When the Spanish conquered the region in the 1500s, they worked to replace the Mayan culture with Christianity and many Mayan structures were destroyed. The Spaniards used the huge stones from some of the pyramids as the foundation for the Cathedral of Merida (Cathedral of San Ildefonso), which is the oldest cathedral on the American continent.

In the Government Palace across from the Main Plaza in central Merida there are several murals by Yucatecan painter Fernando Castro Pacheco that tell us more about the Maya. The painting above shows the Maya emerging from an ear of maize.

The Sisal Cutter’s Feet and the Sisal Cutter’s Hands represent the suffering of the Mayan peasant under the Spanish.

The Maya peasant was virtually slave labour, “perpetually on the move, going to his field at sunrise and not returning home until dusk”.

His hands “bled from the spines of the sisal”. Sisal is a plant native to the Yucatan, cultivated by the Maya to produce ropes and cords.

The Maya conquest by the Spaniards was difficult and the two races never got along. The Maya had a fierce resistance to being dominated. The Caste War of the Yucatan broke out in 1847 with the Maya revolting against the Spanish in a way described as merciless. The war lasted over 50 years and close to a third of the population was wiped out.

The Montego House in Merida is one of the oldest Spanish-built houses in the country. The sculpture on its façade depicts two Spaniards with each foot on the head of a Maya.

The Yucatan was rather isolated until the mid-1900s when the first road to the peninsula was constructed. In the 1980s, airports were built in Cozumel and Cancun, bringing in many international tourists.

Today, the Yucatan has the largest Maya population in the country and welcomes the largest number of foreign tourists. An interesting place.

By Sylvia Fanjoy

Photo  credits Sylvia Fanjoy

© Riding the buses 2013

A road trip through the Maritime Provinces is a wonderful adventure and a great one to do with kids. That’s because there’s lots of variation and you can easily visit the three provinces in 10 days. Throw in a couple of ferry rides between provinces and you won’t spend much time stuffed in a car.

You can stay in some of Canada’s historic lodges, quaint B&Bs, or tent in the region’s many parks. And the food! Lobster fests, buttermilk biscuits, clam chowder, dulse, molasses cake, ‘real’ blueberries, all simply the best.

Maritimes means “of the sea” so fishing is obviously important. And who hasn’t heard about PEI potatoes? The Maritimes also seems to ‘grow’ artisans.  You learn a lot about the history of Canada travelling through the Maritimes, just stumbling upon it because it’s everywhere.

I lived in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley for a time during my youth and every summer my family would camp at Ingonish Beach in Cape Breton, Cavendish Beach in PEI or along the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. My maternal grandmother had a house overlooking the ocean on the South Shore of Nova Scotia and I spent endless hours climbing the rocks by the ocean there. My father was from New Brunswick—he was part of a big family—so we travelled the province visiting his clan. We moved from the Maritimes when I was 13 and I have been back many times but always as a visitor.

If I were taking a road trip through the Maritimes this summer, this would be my route. There’s lots more to see, that’s for sure, but these are my favourite places. You’ll need a map to find the way.

Getting to the Maritimes border

When my kids were young and we were living in Ottawa it took us forever to get on the road the first day. So we usually went only as far as Rivière-de-Loup in Quebec before stopping at a campground. It also took us forever to put up the tent the first night but things got better after that.

If you haven’t been to Quebec City, consider stopping for at least a night before going on to the Maritimes. Old Quebec is historic, the setting is awesome and patio dining there can be memorable.

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is the only Canadian province that is officially bilingual. Most of the French are Acadian and many of the English are descendants of Loyalists who fled the United States during the American Revolution. So it’s an interesting place.

Travelling from Quebec or Ontario along the Trans Canada Highway (Hwy 2), you’ll start your trip in the Maritimes at Edmundston, New Brunswick. The drive from there down the St John River Valley is surprisingly beautiful, particularly when the light is good.

Everyone wants to drive across the world’s longest covered bridge at least once and the exit you take is a little past  Woodstock. The Hartland Bridge, which goes from Somerville to Hartland across the St John River, is 391 m (1282 ft.) long.

St Andrews by-the-sea

You leave Hwy 2 and go south to Passamaquoddy Bay on the Bay of Fundy to one of the oldest and loveliest towns in the Maritimes, St Andrews by-the-sea. It’s very much a New England town, filled with historic homes, some brought over by American settlers after the American Revolution in 1783.

St Andrews was Canada’s first seaside resort and a grand one at that. There are lots of places to stay, including the historic Algonquin Resort, and interesting restaurants and shops.

The Bay of Fundy is famous for its tides and for the Humpback, Minke, Finback, and Right whales that make a home there in the summer. If you have time, take a ferry from Blacks Harbour to Grand Manan Island where life is quaint, boat tours are easy to arrange, and sunsets are amazing.

Fundy National Park

We usually spend a night or two camping at Fundy National Park. It’s near the village of Alma on Hwy 114. There are two activities we always do in the Park. One is to swim in the heated saltwater pool located off Point Wolfe Road. The other is to take the Moose Horn hike.  We first took this 2 hour hike when the kids were young and although it had its tough moments it was a great adventure for we got to cross a river (I think three times), climb rocks using steel steps, and splash around in an unspoiled swimming hole. It rates high on our list of memorable family experiences.

There are 100 km of trails in the Park, ranging from easy to strenuous, so something for everyone.  There are lots of mosquitoes in the forested sections so be prepared.

Hopewell Rocks

What is particularly interesting about the Bay of Fundy is the difference in the height of the water when the tides are low and high. The water can rise as high as 16 meters, which is the height of a four-story building. Hopewell Rocks is probably the best place to see this. At low tide you can walk out on the ocean floor and wander around reddish rock formations that have trees perched on top. If you return a few hours later these same formations are surrounded by water because the high tide has filled the Bay.

When you walk down to the beach, you pass a big ‘Danger’ sign with two clocks. One clock gives you the current time and the other the time you should leave the beach so as not to be stranded when the tide comes in. You can check the tide tables online. There is an excellent Interpretive Centre at the site.

From here it’s just a two-hour drive to Cape Jourimain where you take the bridge to Prince Edward Island.

Prince Edward Island

PEI, Canada’s smallest Province, is located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It’s known for its sand beaches, red soil, and flattish landscape with rolling hills that is perfect for bike riding. It carries the honour of being the “birthplace of Confederation”.

The Confederation Bridge joins the provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. It’s 12.9 km (8 mile) long—the longest bridge in the world—and it takes about 10 minutes to cross it. It took four years to build the bridge and it is considered to be a top Canadian engineering achievement.

You don’t pay a toll going to PEI, either by bridge or by ferry, only when you leave. When you cross the bridge you’re in the southwestern region of the province.

Cavendish Shores

The island is so small that you could easily cross it in a day but this is where you’ll find the best beaches in the Maritimes, where the water is not too cold for swimming, so consider staying for at least a couple of days. We usually stay at Cavendish Campground in PEI National Park or at a nearby private one. There are also cabins, B&Bs and motels around Cavendish.

Kids have lots of fun here just playing in the sand (and when they get a little older, burying their sibling in the sand) and jumping off the sand dunes. There are many walking trails. One day we enjoyed a delectable lunch at Dalvay-by-the-sea that is in the east end of the park; it’s a summer resort hotel that was built in 1895 by a Scottish-American oil tycoon.

If you need a break from the beach then go shopping. Two places I always visit are The Dunes Studio Gallery and the New London Village Pottery. And you really should partake in a traditional Island lobster supper (take your camera).

 Anne of Green Gables
When I was very young I read every one of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books about Anne and so the first time I visited the Green Gables homestead I was totally enchanted. This is a must-see for all Anne fans. I later took my children to the musical Anne of Green Gable at the Charlottetown festival, a production enjoyed by all.

Nova Scotia

The ferry from PEI leaves from Wood Islands, in the southeastern part of the province, and lands in Caribou, Nova Scotia. It operates from May to mid-December. The trip takes 75 minutes and there are frequent crossings.

There is so much to see in Nova Scotia that I can hardly believe it is the second smallest province in the country. Let’s start in its capital city, Halifax.

Halifax

Waterfront
I would start at the boardwalk, buy an ice cream, watch the buskers, take a boat cruise in the harbor (or ride the ferry to Dartmouth and back). Then I’d visit the historic Farmers’ Market in Brewery Square for the atmosphere.

Walk up one of the VERY steep streets
Halifax is one of the world’s largest natural harbors and to appreciate it you need to view it from above. While you’re up there, go have a look at the Citadel.

Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21
Over 1.5 million immigrants, war brides, displaced people, evacuee children, and Canadian military personnel passed through this famous building between 1928 and 1971. They have done an exceptional job in telling their stories.

Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
The gallery showcases the visual arts of Atlantic Canada with exhibits that celebrate life by the sea. There is a good selection of works of well-known Atlantic artists including folk artist Maud Lewis.

Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
The maritime history of Nova Scotia is compelling such as the Halifax Explosion that killed 2000 and injured 9000 more and the sinking of the Titanic.

Restaurants
There are many fantastic restaurants in Halifax. A tradition for me is dinner at McKelvie’s, either Cajun salmon or crunchy haddock. At the top of my daughter’s list would probably be one of the city’s many pubs. Halifax is a university town: Dalhousie University, Mount Saint Vincent University, Saint Mary’s University, University of King’s College. Which came first, the students or the pubs?

The Lighthouse Route

The Lighthouse Route follows the South Shore along Hwy 3, from Halifax to Yarmouth. It’s a winding road—you’ll probably feel dizzy at the end—past 20 lighthouses and charming fishing villages. This to me is the ‘real’ Maritimes, where the highly unpredictable waves of the Atlantic Ocean crash on the rocky shores.

Peggy’s Cove
This quaint fishing village, 43 km southwest of Halifax, is one of the province’s most photographed places.  It’s rather austere: primarily a lighthouse on a rocky terrain. The CAUTION sign warning visitors about the potentially dangerous surf and the slippery rocks is a little foreboding. Still, it’s a perfect place to climb rocks (not too close to the water!) and just appreciate the setting.

Swissair Flight 111 Memorial
This is a memorial to commemorate the 229 people who died when their aircraft crashed into St. Margarets Bay in 1998. There are two memorials in the area and one is at Whalesback, 1 km northwest of Peggy’s Cove.

Mahone Bay
How can you drive through one of the most picturesque maritime towns, described as being “nestled where the Mush-a-Mush and Maggie rivers empty”, without stopping? Three churches are the dominant feature in photos of the place.

Lunenburg
Old town Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a good place to spend the night for there are lots of places to sleep, eat and shop. Lunenburg has a long and proud seafaring history. It’s the birthplace of the Bluenose schooner that won the International Fisherman’s Trophy for 17 years straight and is now home to the Bluenose II.

They say that if you’ve never been to sea then the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic is the place to start. The museum celebrates the fishing heritage of Atlantic Canada from shipbuilding to rum-running to fish filleting. Kids especially love the aquariums filled with native fish and marine creatures. The museum is housed in the red buildings at the Lunenburg waterfront.

Chester
We always make a stop in Chester, often bringing along a picnic lunch. We just walk the streets, looking at the Yacht Club and at the houses and cottages, for this is one of the wealthiest communities in Nova Scotia. It’s intimate and exclusive and very New England. Once we stayed for dinner and took in a play at the Chester Playhouse. Chester is well known for its annual summer sailing regatta that takes place the second week of August.

Beaches around Lunenburg
As a child I spent many summers climbing the rocks at Hunts Point where my grandmother lived, which is a charming fishing village with a little beach. Our favorite place to go swimming was Summerville beach because it’s not only picturesque but has the warmest water in the area (or so it is said).

Port Royal National Historic Site

I would now go across the province to the Fundy Shore (although I always stop in Middleton in the Annapolis Valley to have a look at the house where I once lived). Here at Annapolis Royal you’ll find the reconstructed Habitation, which was one of the earliest European settlements in North America. It’s interesting to learn how Samuel de Champlain and his men, in 1605, established a fur trading post with the Mi’kmaq and survived the harsh conditions. You also learn about North America’s first European social club, the Order of Good Cheer.

New Brunswick

The Princes of Acadia ferry takes you across the Bay of Fundy from Digby, Nova Scotia to St. Johns, New Brunswick. The voyage takes three hours and I usually book it in advance. Digby is in the Annapolis Basin and known as the scallop capital of the world. In NB, consider visiting the St. John’s City Market, a lively place with a great display of produce and seafood, before starting the drive home.

You can either head north, back the way you came, or take the short drive west to St. Stephen, NB and from there cross into Calais, Maine.

Cape Breton Island

Cape Breton is one of my favourite places in all of Canada but driving there and seeing the island within a 10-day itinerary that includes all of the Maritimes would be too rushed. If you’re planning a trip up the west coast of Newfoundland then add on a few days for Cape Breton for you catch the ferry to Nfld from there.

By Sylvia Fanjoy

Photo credits Sylvia Fanjoy

© Riding the buses 2013

This is no ordinary garden show; some would call it weird; the founder says it’s contemporary. Since the festival began in 2000, 110 gardens from 15 countries have been selected by a jury to be part of the exhibition.  290 proposals were received from 31 countries for the 2013 festival and six gardens chosen, so it continues to grow.

Tim Richardson, the author of several books on gardens and a garden columnist for  Britain’s Daily Telegraph, considers this festival to be “one of the very best conceptual garden shows worldwide”. It certainly encourages innovation and experimentation, bringing together “the visual arts, architecture, design, landscape and the environment”.

The festival is one of 25 gardens that Richardson showcased in his book Great Gardens of America (there is another Canadian garden on the list, Les Quatre Vents). The festival, says Richardson, has no declared theme but instead actively encourages participants to “grapple within a sense of place”, within an existing historic garden and a “grand natural landscape”.

The historic garden that he is referring to is the Reford Gardens (Jardins de Métis) that occupies the adjacent site. I suspect we “traditional” gardeners go to Grand-Métis to see Elsie’s Reford’s historic garden and stumble upon the contemporary one quite by accident. Richardson would probably say that we suffer from trying to preserve gardens as they looked in the past.

Certainly, innovation has its place and Alexander Reford, the great-grandson of Elsie Reford and director of both the Reford Gardens and the International Garden Festival, is to be admired for his initiative. I do think it helpful to read and think about the gardens before you go so that you know what the designer was thinking.

The festival’s setting is austere, bordered by the St. Lawrence River, a woodland, a large field and a forest.  It seems a long way from the colourful and familiar Reford gardens although the distance is not great. The two spaces are dramatically different.

Here are four of the gardens that were on display when I was there in 2011.

A ditch with a view: Explores the concept of the borrowed view and the role of voyeurism in the secret garden. Recycled windows bound the secret garden space and provide views of the ditch and the borrowed landscape beyond.

Fleur de sel: Presents an image of the first snowfall and that underneath the snow the garden will remain hidden until the snow melts. It is up to the onlooker to imagine what the garden is like. A lot of salt is used every year in Canada to melt snow on the roads and we sometimes forget how important salt is.

Réflexions colorées: A semi-reflective equilateral triangle provides a courtyard-like enclosure that frames and intensifies the perception of the forest. The perception changes with the light and where the visitor is standing.

Our sins: These giant sea urchin sculptures were inspired for this maritime environment. While they are geometric and joyful, their footprint is modest and a mysterious find on the edge of an evergreen forest.

The International Garden Festival is located on route 132 in Grand-Métis, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, mid-way between Rimouski and Matane. This year the festival runs from June 22 to September 29. Descriptions of the 2013 gardens and the jury that selected them are available on the festival website along with information on how to get there.              

By Sylvia Fanjoy

Photo credits Sylvia Fanjoy

© Riding the buses 2013

Kandy is a busy place imbued with old world charm. At its core is a large, man-made lake; the hills are its backdrop.  It is a religious centre and home to the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha, which attracts pilgrims from around the world. The nearby Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage is a popular stop for many visitors as is the spectacular Peradeniya Botanical Gardens.

I stayed just outside the city, up in the hills, in a wonderful hotel called The Mansion for US$50/night and found it easy to get around by tuk-tuk. The hotel setting is very peaceful, very bucolic.

You pass through many tunnels on the train from Colombo to Kandy and this ride is said to be one of the best in the world. I skipped that trip but did take the train from Kandy to Nanu Oya, the closest station to Nuwara Eliya, a town often called “Little England” because it was a favourite British hill station. The tallest mountain in Sri Lanka overlooks Nuwara Eliya and a perch there is well worth the climb for an overview of the incredible landscape that surrounds the town. Close by is Horton Plains National Park where a sheer precipice called World’s End drops 1050 meters.

The tea plantations around Nuwara Eliya are astonishingly picturesque, with bushes laid out in perfect lines that follow the contours of the land. Tea grows best at high altitudes where there’s plenty of rain, so everything is lush and green and the air consistently fresh. The British not only introduced tea to these highlands but also built roads and railway lines to transport the tea out. Many Europeans migrated here to be tea planters. And when the British discovered they didn’t have enough labour to work the tea estates they brought over Tamils from southern India to do that.

These so-called ‘Plantation Tamils’ are very different from the ‘Sri Lankan’ Tamils that live in the North, although they have a common language. The tea here is picked by hand, not by machine, with the workers bending over the tops of the three-foot high bushes picking only the bud and two youngest leaves. Many of the tea pluckers are women.

Ceylon tea (Sri Lanka was called Ceylon until 1972) is famous, exported to countries around the world. You can visit a tea factory where the tea is withered, rolled, fermented, dried, sorted and packaged. No preservatives or artificial flavourings are added to Pure Ceylon Tea.

The climate in the hill country is not only ideal for growing tea but also for temperate crops such as carrots, cabbages and apples rather than the tropical fruits and vegetables that are grown in the low country. These terrace gardens are also perfect and add to the beauty of the setting.

There is a private club in Nuwara Eliya that was founded by British coffee planters in 1876 as a ‘home away from home’. Staff cheerfully showed me around the place and I suspect it is much the same today as it was more than a century ago. There’s also a golf club that imposes a strict dress code on its infrequent visitors. Quaint.

Nearby is a rather interesting Hindu Temple called Seetha Kovil and the modest Hakgala Botanical Gardens. I hired a tuk-tuk driver to take me around for a couple of days and then, when he was able to obtain a car, to drive me over to Ella and down to Tissa.

Ella is a popular place for visitors, with small shops and restaurants and a laid-back atmosphere. Accommodation can be difficult to obtain. What do you do in Ella? You walk for it’s the base for trekking expeditions to Ella’s Rock and beyond. This was also the first place in the country where I ran into young backpackers catching a local bus.

What makes Ella spectacular is the view you have from here through a gap in the hills. It is acclaimed and simply referred to as Ella’s Gap.  The garden of the Grand Ella motel is reputed to be the best place to see the Gap. There’s also the Rawana Ella Falls, the pastoral setting, the friendly people…

I will surely return.

By Sylvia Fanjoy

Photo credits Sylvia Fanjoy

© Riding the buses