St. John's

The hill guarding the harbour mouth; at Cabot Tower on top, Marconi received the first wireless signal sent across the Atlantic in 1901. Gusts there call for a jacket in midsummer too, and the North Head path behind skirts a cliff, so hold children firmly.

The easternmost point of the North American continent, where the 1836 lighthouse is the oldest surviving one in the province. Sunrise reaches here first on the continent, so people drive out before dawn, and in June and July humpbacks pass below the cliffs.

The nickname for rows of wooden houses painted red, yellow and purple, scattered over many of the steep downtown lanes. No single street carries the name, so photographers walk the hillside streets around Gower Street to find them.

A short street of barely two blocks packed with pubs, closed to cars at night to become a pedestrian strip. Live music usually starts only after 10pm, and during the street festival in early August entry needs a ticket.

The provincial museum, art gallery and archives under one roof, shaped after the sheds where fishermen once dressed their catch. The upstairs cafe's big windows frame the harbour and Signal Hill, so some come just for coffee and skip the exhibits.

A fishing village one hill over from downtown, boats moored in its narrow gut, with a brewery using melted iceberg water. On the first Wednesday of August the lake beside it hosts a regatta held since 1818; that morning's weather decides if it goes ahead.

Rocky islands 40 minutes south by car, holding the largest Atlantic puffin colony in North America. Landing is not allowed, so boats from Bay Bulls circle close to the islands, and from June to August humpback whales turn up as well.

A footpath running hundreds of km along the cliffs of the Avalon Peninsula, with sections close to the city that make good day hikes. Fog can roll in within minutes until the path vanishes, so a ride from each section's far end is arranged in advance.

A stone church completed in 1855, its twin towers looking down on the harbour from the hill above downtown. Stone and lime brought over from Ireland went into it, and the harbour view from the steps before its doors ranks among the best in the city.

A fishing village 20 minutes south by car, where a small aquarium by the wharf lets you handle urchins and crabs. Its creatures are caught in nearby waters in spring and all released back to sea in autumn, so it opens only in summer.

A geology centre dug into the side of Signal Hill, where one wall of the exhibit hall is bare Precambrian rock. Exhibits also cover the sinking of the Titanic and offshore oil drilling.

A large park west of downtown, home to a Peter Pan statue cast from the same mould as the one in London's Kensington Gardens. Duck ponds and paths follow the stream, and families fill it on weekends.

A pebble beach some 20 minutes by car toward the north. When capelin roll ashore in schools to spawn in early summer, locals head to the water with dip nets and buckets.

The dig site of a settlement founded in 1621 at Ferryland, about 80km south. In summer, visitors can watch archaeologists at work up close, and a reconstructed 17th-century kitchen stands nearby.

A neighbourhood of houses clinging to the cliffs at the harbour mouth below Signal Hill. Where the lane narrows to one car's width, the North Head Trail begins and follows the cliffs up to Signal Hill.