On The Road Again

While every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, ours usually starts with a long haul flight. But, although we are headed to the furthest fringes of eastern Europe, we began with a relatively short hop to our nation's capital – Ottawa. These are the parliament buildings...

And this is the KitKat themed cake that James made in Ottawa to celebrate our friend Trudy's significant birthday...

Canada is vast and the "short hop” to our capital city took us four thousand five hundred kilometres by ships, buses, cars a train and a plane – a distance greater than we will travel over the next few weeks when we pass through 15 countries from Tallinn in the northern Baltics to the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. But first, a trip around southern Ontario to visit friends and see the breathtaking Niagara Falls...

Visitors from all over the world are enthralled by the spectacle of the Falls, but not so many realise that just 20 kilometres away is Niagara-on-the-Lake - Canada's prettiest town. This is the historic high street where many of the buildings are 200 years old...

Southern Ontario lies adjacent to the United States and before the American War of Independence (1775 – 1782) there was no effective border. However, in 1812 the two countries were at war and fortresses were built on both sides. Fort Niagara on the U.S. side is just a short distance across the river from Niagara -on-the-Lake...

And this is one of the many canons in Fort Henry, Kingston, aimed across the border at the United States. These fortresses and canons haven't been needed for over 200 years but we keep them just in case a lunatic ever becomes the President of the United States!!!

It is fall in Canada and the Ontario maples are beginning to take on their fancy vermilion plumage. ..

The countryside will be aflame with colour in a week or so and then will come the deep freeze with temperatures plummeting to minus 30 degrees celsius or lower. So – it's time to for us to push on southward to the Mediterranean. First, a brief stop in England. See you soon.