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Bonavista is said to be the place where the Genoan Giovanni Caboto would have landed in 1497.
Having heard of the discovery of new land by his Genoan countryman Cristoforo Colombo in 1492, Giovanni Caboto sought and obtained the support of the English king Henry VII to do the same. He sailed from Bristol with a crew of 18 on the ship Matthew and landed somewhere on the east coast of America in June 1497.
The exact spot of his landing remains unknown. It could have been north in Labrador or south in today's Nova Scotia but Giovanni Caboto did not return to confirm his claims, he was lost on his subsequent voyage. Newfoundlanders so vociferously claimed Bonavista was the place that they drowned out all other claims,
The blue building with a red roof is a special boathouse designed to shelter the replica of the barque Matthew you can see in front of it during the winter.
Here is a closer view of the reproduction of Caboto's barque Matthew .
We landed by zodiac and got on busses that took us to the nearby town of Trinity, said to be one of Newfoundland oldest settlements still standing.
We finally had the good fortune of fine weather in Trinity as our cruise drew close to its end.
The parish hall.
There was such a solitary beauty in this isolated house near Trinity harbour that I could not resist taking a picture of it.
Going back to the Orlova by zodiac after a tourist's tour of the town.
Our expedition leader gave us her final instructions before dinner and the next day we disembarked in St-John's
This 360 degree moving panorama shows St-John's and it's well sheltered harbour.
We all said good bye and went our respective ways.
The substantial conversations I had with my cabin mate Tom Fegyveresi compensated a little for several disappointments that made this trip on the Orlova rather mediocre compared to the excellent cruise to Antarctica on the same ship that I had liked so much under the able leadership of Olle Carlsson last December.
St-John's is renowned for its hills and wooden clapboard buildings. Here are a few of them on the northern end of Duckworth street near the Quality Hotel.
Moving south on Duckworth street we cross a number of hilly streets like this one (possibly Prescott street).
Here is another street corner with Duckworth to the right (I did not note down the name of the cross street).
At the south end of Duckworth, these stairs lead down to Water street, from which this picture was taken, that is St-John's main street.
Now, moving north up Water street you come to the Court House, one of St-John's few stone buildings.
There are other landmarks worth visiting around St-John's but I did not linger for I had been here before and I had to catch a plane to Saint Pierre et Miquelon that afternoon.
St-John's has a fine modern airport built by Canada's federal government.
