St. John's Newfoundland July 11, 2019

Another overcast start to the day, good chance of showers. Today is a slow morning, we did laundry as I was running low on socks and unmentionables. I wanted to get a look at the entire city and see the layout of the land. I had read about something called the Link. The Link is a bus hop on hop off bus that brings you all around the city to all the touristy spots. You can get on and get off at any location they stop at. On the ride, the driver narrates about various places you are seeing with interesting tidbits of information.  JulieAnn and I took a taxi downtown after lunch and walked around a bit. I loved the tv show Republic of Doyle and was hoping to find a few of the places that had been highlighted in the show before hopping on the Link. We had the taxi drop us off near Jelly Bean Row, another site I was interested in, as it seemed so many of the quintessential colors I was hoping to see in travels around Newfoundland had not been found due to so many houses being recently covered over with vinyl siding in regular neutral colors. St. John's did not disappoint when it came to colorful houses!

They even have the most adorable mailboxes on their homes here!

 We found Gower Street, but 28 was going to be too far a walk from where we were and we would miss the Link bus we were determined to catch, so we never did find the Doyle home. 

I guess it takes a special painter to keep the Jelly Bean houses looking up to snuff!

 We may not have found the Republic of Doyle house, but we did find the infamous pub the Doyle's would have a pint or two in.

 I found a few nice souvenirs in Irene's, including my favorite Puffin tee shirt. 

After a quick walking tour, we went back to the Visitor's Center and bought a ticket for the Link.  We decided to hop on and stay on for the entire trip. We had a great driver. She would stop at certain places and let us off the bus to get photos. One time it was right in the middle of the street so I could get some shots of the Jelly Bean Houses. She was a lot of fun and full of interesting information. 

We stopped part way up Signal Hill and found some soldiers ready to do battle. 

They are getting ready for a re-enactment, it demonstrates the military drills of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment of foot as formed in 1795.

They are getting ready to fire the noon day cannon.

Signal Hill was the site of St. John's harbor defenses from the 17th century to the Second World War. Signal Hill is also where Guglielmo Marconi received the world's first transatlantic wireless signal in 1901.

The only place I wished we got off the bus was in Quidi Vidi Village. That would have been a very cool place to spend a few hours, but by then we were running out of time and had to meet our friends long before the next bus would arrive. It gives me a reason to come back to this city one more time. 

Once we completed the loop, it was time for some retail therapy. We met up with rest of the group in on of the stores before heading off to our final dinner as a traveling group. 

We had an amazing boiled lobster dinner at Oliver's in downtown St. John's.

 before

after

 After dinner we went to Trapper John's.

 All the ladies got Screeched In and became honorary Newfoundlanders, the men wimped out. We returned to camp for one last game of Catch Phrase in our trailer. Lots of drinking and lots of laughs were had.