The taxi driver who brought us from YYT (St. John’s International Airport) to our hotel early this morning kept us awake by giving us suggestions for places to go in our free time in St. John’s. I’d read about most of the places he mentioned, but there was one I hadn’t heard of which sounded intriguing – Kitty Vitti Brewery. At least that’s what it sounded like. I fell asleep wondering what he was really saying.

We slept fairly late this morning, but once we got up, we flung open the curtains and took our first good look at St. John’s.

After breakfast, we decided to walk to the Visitor Centre downtown to get some guidance on how to spend our day. Our mapping program said it should take about 20 minutes to get there, but we kept getting distracted by the scenery!

Andrew at the Visitor Centre suggested we visit Signal Hill (where Marconi received the first transatlantic radio transmissions) and Quidi Vidi Brewery Taproom (oh…that’s how it’s spelled!) today, and save some of the closer attractions for tomorrow morning. That sounded good, and we set out for the brewery (and lunch).

Quidi Vidi is a small village a couple of miles from downtown St. John’s. There’s a lot to see there, but we were hungry and went directly to the brewery.

There was a line of people waiting to be seated, and it took quite a while for our food to be served. The beer, on the other hand, arrived right away. I had “Iceberg”, their lager, which is made with water from icebergs found off the Newfoundland coast; Diane had “1892 Traditional Ale”.

The taproom is an interesting (and busy) place; they have great views, and there was a regular Sunday session of traditional music going on while we were there.

We finally left the taproom a little after 3pm and set forth for Signal Hill. The trail took us by Cuckolds Cove and gave us some great views.

We met a lot of people along the way, including a family who were out for a little hike in hopes of triggering labor for their third baby, who was a day or two overdue! The father took this photo of us in front of Cuckolds Cove.

We took the trail to Ladies’ Lookout and got to see Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America. Andrew at the Visitor Centre suggested we go there, too, but it’d take a couple of hours and we’d need to take a taxi – maybe another time.

We followed the trail to Cabot Tower and the exhibits there. We could have spent a couple of hours exploring, but it was already after 5pm.

Marconi received the first transatlantic radio transmission on Signal Hill (in an old hospital, since demolished). There are exhibits in and around the tower telling the story (including the rise and eventual fall of the Marconi companies).

After we left Cabot Tower, we walked around the grounds and enjoyed more views.

We stopped at the Visitor Centre and then walked the 20 minutes back to our hotel.

We had a little snack in the Club Lounge at the hotel, where we met two other travelers on our cruise.

We took one more short walk (not shown on the map above) to The Parlour for ice cream. We passed yet more intriguing places (the Colonial Building and Bannerman Park, to name but two) along the way but resisted the temptation to explore. Tomorrow morning, though….

We flew home from Europe on Thursday (August 20) on the morning nonstop from Amsterdam to SFO. It had taken us nearly an hour to get through the EES (European Entry-Exit System) in Amsterdam on our way to Barcelona a few months ago, and I’d read horror stories of people requiring hours to get through the system on their way back to the US, so we got up very early that morning and were at the KLM counter at 7am for a 9:50am departure.

Getting through passport control took 90 seconds. We were able to use the “E-Gates” and didn’t have to have photos or fingerprints taken nor speak to an immigration officer. We had plenty of time to kill in the KLM Lounge.

Which was good, because in our hurry, I’d used the Marriott app’s online checkout and hadn’t asked for a printed receipt – and I was unpleasantly surprised to see a 95 Euro mystery charge for a “package” on the receipt the hotel emailed me! I used the app to send a complaint to the hotel, and an hour later, received an apology and a corrected bill.

The flight was uneventful. To stay awake, I spent a good bit of time looking at the map, which included Wikipedia articles about places near our route of flight. I now know more about Lafleche, Saskatchewan, than I really need to know, even for trivia.

We landed at SFO about noon and were in a Hertz car on our way home about an hour later.

Two days later, we returned the car to Hertz at SFO and hopped on an Air Canada flight to Montreal. We had a tight connection there to another Air Canada flight to St. John’s, Newfoundland for our next adventure. We landed a few minutes late, were the first people off the plane, raced though Canada Immigration and Customs, and zipped back to the same gate…where we boarded the same airplane we’d flown in on, just sitting on the other side of the aisle. On the bright side, that was the most walking we did that day!

We finally got to St. John’s around 1am Newfoundland time; it was nearly 2am when we got to our hotel.

Newfoundland Daylight Time (UTC-2:30) is exactly half-way between Western European Summer Time (UTC+2) and Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7), so I think our recovery from jet lag from the previous trip has gotten us set for this trip. :-)

We are going to be on a National Geographic/Lindblad cruise around Newfoundland starting Monday afternoon. It should be fun!