French Canada, Waterfalls & Cottage Country

From the moment you land, Montreal feels different. The street signs are in French, the food is extraordinary — this is the city that invented the bagel wars and gave the world poutine — and the neighbourhoods are layered with personality. You stay in the Chateau Versailles, a gorgeous Victorian boutique hotel on Sherbrooke Street. Two days passes quickly: Old Montreal's cobbled streets, the underground city, the Plateau for brunch, and at least one spectacular dinner.

A Business Class train whisks you to Ottawa in just over two hours — one of the most civilised ways to travel between cities. Ottawa is a surprise to most visitors: the Parliament buildings are genuinely magnificent, the Rideau Canal turns into the world's longest skating rink in winter and the National Gallery of Canada is one of the finest on the continent. The city has a warmth and openness that feels quintessentially Canadian.

Collect your rental car in Ottawa and head north into Algonquin — one of Canada's most beloved provincial parks. Covering nearly 8,000 square kilometres of Canadian Shield forest, river and lake, Algonquin is home to moose, black bears, wolves and the haunting call of the common loon. At Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, your base on the edge of the park, evenings are spent watching the sun set across the lake with a drink on the dock.

Drive south to Niagara — not just the falls, but the quietly beautiful wine country that surrounds them. You stay at the Riverbend Inn and Vineyard on the Niagara River Parkway — an elegant inn with vineyards rolling to the river's edge. Ontario's wine country produces some genuinely world-class Rieslings and ice wines. And the falls themselves? Nothing quite prepares you. Five million cubic feet of water per minute tumbling over the edge — it's visceral and magnificent and weirdly moving.

Toronto is bigger and more diverse than most visitors expect. Over 200 languages are spoken here, and the food reflects it gloriously — from Kensington Market's international street food to the high-end dining of King West. The CN Tower, the waterfront, the Distillery District and the extraordinary Royal Ontario Museum fill your days. Toronto has an energy that's distinctly its own — ambitious, welcoming and endlessly interesting.