Newfoundland - St. John's

Hello from Canada! Alex and I are currently exploring Newfoundland and although we’ve only been here for a few days, this area really does pack a punch in terms of beauty! To get to Newfoundland, we took an early-morning flight (6:20am), had a brief layover in Toronto, and then landed in St. John’s, Newfoundland around 2:00pm.

We rented a car and will be spending a little less than two weeks in Newfoundland driving around the island and staying in five different places - St. John’s, Trinity, Gros Morne National Park, Twillingate, Fogo Islands and then again to St. John’s where we fly back to New York.

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After picking up our rental car, we headed 30-minutes outside the airport to Cape Spear. Cape Spear is the most easterly point in Canada and all of North America. If you were to sail across the ocean in a straight line, the next time you would hit land would be in Ireland! There are two lighthouses on the cliff, one of which is the oldest surviving lighthouse in the province.

After exploring Cape Spear, we headed into St. John’s to check into our hotel room and explore the city. St. John’s is known for their colorful houses that line the streets. Known as Jellybean Row, it was part of a revitalization project in the 1970’s and the locals loved the trend so much that it stuck! I really loved walking down each street and seeing all the bright colors.

Even the mailboxes were painted in bright colors!

During our first full day in Newfoundland, we drove up and down the coast along various points of the East Coast Trail. This series of trails goes from Pouch Cove to Cappahayden and is a great way to explore the eastern side of the island. During our first hike down to the beach, we saw a whale!! Given its smaller size, we believe it was a minke whale. We saw these several years ago in Iceland and the tour guide at the time referred to these types of whales as a “slinky minke”. They only surface for a split-second and then will dive down and can be difficult to track again. We were able to spot whales a couple more times in the bay and it was a very exciting find!

After driving around the coast, we headed back to St. John’s to visit Signal Hill. The castle atop the hill is Cabot Tower, built in 1900 to honor both John Cabot's arrival in 1497 and Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

We finished the afternoon in the small fishing village of Quidi Vidi where we grabbed a beer at Quidi Vidi Brewing and dinner at Mallard Cottage. This neighborhood is adorable and you can pretty much walk from one end of the town to the other in about five minutes.

Accommodation: Alt Hotel

Restaurants: Adelaide Oyster House & Mallard Cottage