Exploring Kingston

We're almost at the end of our Suzuki Institute week. It's been a busy one, but we managed to find a few hours to explore a little bit of Kingston by foot. Fortunately, the Queen's University campus is well situated. It's a short walk to the downtown area, and one has the choice of walking along the river to take in the gorgeous views or through older residential streets lined with interesting examples of architecture.


Yesterday, we visited the Murney Tower, built in 1846 as part of Kingston's defences. It is now a museum and has a nice display of military artifacts, though Kate found the cellar rather spooky. The tower shows the name, "Murnay Redoubt", carved in stone. Apparently, the tower was originally named after Sir George Murray but was commonly known as the Murney tower, after landowner Henry James Murney. At some point, the second 'R' in the carved 'MURRAY' got changed to an 'N' to make a hybrid name.


Today, we toured Bellevue House, the home of John A. Macdonald. The extensive gardens are as interesting as the house itself, and a treasure hunt kept Kate well occupied during our visit. The house is said to be one of the best examples of Italianate architecture in Canada.


Finally, I have to show the Chez Piggy sign. As mentioned earlier, this is our family's favourite Kingston restaurant. We've stopped in many times en route to Montreal. Kate and I ate at Chez Piggy before the week started, and the residence food drove us to return yesterday night, our only free evening this week. I did suggest trying a different restaurant, but Kate vetoed the idea, not wanting to mess with a good thing. A bit of trivia: Chez Piggy was started by Zal Yanovsky, lead guitarist of the Lovin' Spoonful. Maybe that's why Todd was persuaded to try it out initially.