St. John’s

We got to St. John’s early afternoon after scenic drive around Conception Bay. We stopped at a quilt shop that Cathy has been eying, and she managed to find a few patterns and bits of fabric.

Next stop was the historic district of Quidi Vidi. Wandered around the craft shops and then on to the Quidi Vidi brewery for lunch. Lovely stop with fantastic views of the very well protected harbour.

St. John’s is our second stop out of the van. We’re in a nice little hotel in Paradise, about 15 minutes from downtown. We checked in a bit early so we could get our laundry out of the way. Last time for laundry this trip!

One of our reasons for coming here, besides wanting to see some the city, was to once again meet up with Cathy’s brother and sister in law. They’re at the end of their 11 day trip before flying back home to Ontario. After they arrived and settled in, we headed downtown to find a pub for dinner. We were going on a recommendation from a friend of Cathy’s brother so off to O’Reilly’s Pub. Unfortunately it was a pretty bad experience. The servers were overwhelmed, under-trained, and the kitchen was backed up so we waited almost an hour and a half to get our dinner. Oh well, live and learn. We did make up for it after we went exploring and found a pub frequented by locals call Broderick’s. Great staff, excellent service, and great music.

Saturday we all set out to see a few sights around St’ John’s starting with Signal hill, a place that I have some vague memories of visiting when I was last here in 1974. It was a stunning day, and we took a nice winding walk to to the top. Lots to see and great views of the harbour. St. John’s has a really well protected harbour. Fortified by the British in the 1800’s, some of the original buildings are still standing. In 1901, Signal Hill was where Marconi received the first trans Atlantic wireless signal proving that long distance wireless communication was possible. It wasn’t until 1924, that the theory that the ionosphere would reflect radio waves was finally proved. It was originally thought that if you sent a wireless signal it travelled in a straight line and any signal that left England would be out in space by the time it reached St’ John’s. Ah, science, you gotta love it!

The next stop was to a place called Logy Bay, just up the coast on the Avalon Peninsula. Cathy’s brother had a photograph of a painting that hangs in the family cottage north of Belleville that he thinks was a retirement present from Canadian National Railway’s to their grandfather. The painting is titled Logy Bay, so we were trying to see what it was based on. There’s now an Ocean Sciences Research Centre there so we stopped there to see what we could see and yep, this was the place the painting was based on.

Stopped for lunch at a small place called Lorina‘s. Great homemade food, small, and busy little place!

We went a bit further up the coast to Pouch Cove, near the top of the peninsula. Very exposed to the North Atlantic, they built stages to land the cod, but it had to be winched up by the bucket load from the boats. The storms and sea ice would damage the stages every winter, so they were repaired/rebuilt every spring. A very rocky place, and it would have been a dangerous job getting fish off the boats. They’ve also preserved one of the last buildings that produced Cod Liver Oil. Looking east from Pouch Cove, your next stop would be Europe so very open to the full fury of the North Atlantic Ocean.

For our last night in St. John‘s, we headed back downtown to a Spanish inspired tapa’s restaurant, the “One Eared Goat”. Dinner was fantastic, great food, and a nice Spanish wine they recommended that paired beautifully with the food. After a brief walk, we stopped for a nightcap at the Shamrock Pub. Again, live entertainment, and great service!

Like everywhere we’ve been in Newfoundland, we’ve seen highlights and it’s the same for St. John’s. We’ll likely spend some more time here on our next trip, somewhere down the road……