Travel by car ?
 

I´m from Uruguay (south America, and I´m planning to visit Toronto,Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec driving. <BR>Do you think it is a good idea drive through those cities, or it is better to take a train or bus. <BR> <BR>Thank you.

Hi Daniel. Like all American cities, those of Canada are congested in the downtown areas. Where you will need the car the most is traveling from city to city. Once you are there, my guess is that you will drive to some of the major attractions, but for the most part you will be happy to find a parking place. Quebec is the smallest of the cities you name, but it is crowded, too. <BR>We found parking for a few hours at a time near the visitor center close to the Plains of Abraham battlefield. <BR>So the answer is this: you need the car to go from city to city, but once in the city the car can be problem because of parking.

I agree with Bob. You'll be ok driving from city to city. Once you are in each city, you'll be better off parking your car and taking public transport....at least in Toronto and Montreal. Most of the sights are in the downtown area, and those that aren't , are easy to get to. <BR>Ottawa isn't too bad for driving. But again, most of the sights are all within walking distance. <BR>Toronto and Ottawa both have hop on, hop off bus tours that go to many of the top spots. I'm not sure if Montreal does, but we took an excellent walking tour there last summer. <BR>Good luck.

Oh, now I'm not sure if the bus tour we took in Ottawa was a hop on hop off or a regular bus tour. I don't want to mislead you. But it was a good tour. <BR>The free tours of the parliament buildings in Ottawa are very good. <BR>

One advantage of driving, even if you park the car in each city and use public transportation to get around within, is that you don't have to drag your belongings around from one city to the next. You'll probably want to compare the expenses. Fuel is expensive right now, but so are train fares.

One advantage of driving between the larger cities is that you can make stops in the the smaller places and get to see more than what you would from a train window. However, if you don't have time for all the stops you may want to make, the train would be quicker and more convenient as the train stations are centrally located in each of the cities you mentioned. As previous posters mentioned, parking can be a problem (and expensive) in our larger cities. <BR> <BR>Here are a couple sites which may be off use: <BR> <BR>Travel Ontario: http://www.travelinx.com/ <BR> <BR>Tourism Quebec: http://www.tourisme.gouv.qc.ca/anglais/home_a.html <BR> <BR>Via Rail: http://www.viarail.ca/