Creemore, Ontario

Another charming older town in rural southwestern Ontario is Creemore.

The most important thing about the town is that it is home to the Creemore Springs Brewery. The brewery is best known for its premium lager. Its seasonal UrBock is a less well-known but excellent product, usually available in LCBO stores from roughly October to March.

Guelph, Ontario

Guelph is one of the small cities in southwestern Ontario, with a population of about 110,100. The city includes the location where the Eramosa river meets the Speed river.

The city is the home of several breweries. The largest by far is the Sleeman brewery, well known for its Cream Ale and Honey Brown Lager amongst other brands.

The smallest brewery in town may well be the F&M Brewery. They produce their own well-liked Stonehammer Pilsner, as well as a Stonehammer Dark Ale that is somewhat remindful of Amsterdam Nut Brown Ale and even more so of the good Black Oak Nut Brown Ale. F&M also makes MacLean's Pale Ale, which is quite good.

Some of the very best beer produced in Ontario is made at the Wellington Brewery. Two of their best beers are the Arkell Best Bitter and the County Ale. These are also available in cask, in what they call a Real ale format in which some fermentation continues on in the cask. It is these two of beers which, as Real ale in the cask in particular and when served at the right temperature, can compete with anything else brewed in the province.

Another important place in Guelph is the Woolwich Arms. Apart from focusing on local Ontario food and produce, the "Woolie" also serves Wellington Brewery's real ale format ales.

London, Ontario

London Ontario is home to the University of Western Ontario. Western is one of Canada's oldest universities and it was founded in 1878. Within its beautiful campus you can find the Ontario Research Centre for Computer Algebra where research into many symbolic algebra topics takes place. The researchers at ORCCA also help to develop Maple.

Neustadt, Ontario

Neustadt is a pretty little town in southwestern Ontario.

The most important thing about the town is that it is home to the Neustadt Brewery. Their Scottish Ale (previously "Heavy Ale") is good, and especially enjoyable in the autumn and winter months. Their 10W30 Brown Ale is very good.

Toronto, Ontario

The University of Toronto is Canada's largest university and considered one of its very best. Its downtown campus (St. George) campus is the original site with all of the older buildings (circ. mid 19th century) and most of its most prestigeous faculties. Of note for the math crowd would be the Fields Institute . Though not much to do when you visit, the immediate neighborhood makes for a wonderful day. Within a quick walk will be Chinatown, Kensington Market, and Provincial Parliament. On the subway, get off on the "Queen's Park" stop.

Next to U of T, the average technocrat would likely be attracted to the engineering feats of the CN Tower (world's tallest free-standing structure) and the Sky Dome (now called the "Rogers Centre" named after the Canadian cable giant who owns the stadium). The Sky dome is unique for its massive retractable roof.

Some might consider the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) or the Ontario Science Centre (the world's original interactive science museum) to be worthy stops. However, if you have regular access to New York, Chicago, London, etc. etc. you'll likely find these museums to be at mid-grade.

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Waterloo, Ontario

University of Waterloo

The most significant destination would be the University of Waterloo, the birthplace of Maple as well as many other significant inventions including the the famous programming languages WATFOR and WATFIV, the WATCOM series of software, and the first electronic version of the Oxford English Dictionary. It is also known for the largest Faculty of Math in the world -- over 3000 undergrad majors in math. There are equal numbers of engineers and scientists as well. It also pioneered the co-op education program in Canada and is one of the largest programs of its type in the world.

We like to think of ourselves as the MIT or Stanford of the North. Within the university, there are no "Must see" sights but some interesting ones are MC Math and Computer building where a lot of technology was born (they still have a cavernous room that used to hold the gigantic mainframe computers), Federation Hall -- the largest student pub in Canada with a capacity of about 3,000, Environmental and Information Sciences building that has a free science museum, and an endless supply of the ugliest art sculptures known to humankind. Get details from www.uwaterloo.ca.

In addition, other notable destinations are,

Wilfrid Laurier University: The "other" university is down the street from its larger peer. WLU is more known for its liberal arts and business programs. It's also the home of the annual Maple Conference. An interesting note is that WLU used to be Waterloo Lutheran University but when schools became state funded, the government insisted removing religious references ... fortunately, Canada has a Prime Minister with a convenient initials. www.wlu.ca

Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics: a scientific think tank established by local entrepreneur Mike Laziridis (inventor of the RIM Blackberry mobile device) is in an amazing new building on a very pleasant park location in downtown Waterloo. Nice walk from the universities. They also offer good public lectures. www.perimeterinstitute.ca.

Maplesoft: easily the most successful math company that Canada has ever produced. Our worldwide headquarters is in the northern technology business district, in a beautiful, modern, perfectly non-descript high-tech office building. You can visit though there may not be much to see. During lunch on Thursdays, the hot dog vendor comes by to sell cheap hot dogs and sausages ... mmmm. 615 Kumpf Dr. Directions

The university area technology corner: UW spun off many technology companies. In addition to Maplesoft, others include RIM, OpenText, MKS, Desire2Learn, and Watcom (acquired by Sybase). The corner of Phillip St. and Columbia St. West (near UW) is a hotspot for these companies. Not a heck of a lot to see but a concentration of tech generally means great, cheap restaurants. Don't expect to find fashionable boutiques here.

Wordsworth Bookstore: not exactly a math place but is a quaint, independent book shop where the staff actually read and can recommend good regional authors. Nice walk from the Perimeter. 100 King St. South, www.wordsworthbooks.com.

Princess Cinema: specializing in art and foreign films, this modestly priced (and modestly comfortable) cinema is a great place to catch a film that you don't understand. There are lots of pubs, restaurants, and cafes in the vicinity as well. www.princesscinemas.com.

Oktoberfest: if you want to meet mathematicians and discuss graph theory don't come to the world's second largest Bavarian beer festival (second only to Munich). For a magical two weeks in October every hockey arena in our city turns into a beer hall with thousands of cheap Bavarian style hats, pork food products, polka music played by bands who do Metallica covers during other parts of the year, and countless drunken people shouting German phrases that they have no hope of understanding or pronouncing correctly. Ich bin ein Waterlooner! www.oktoberfest.ca.

Meudon

Not far from Paris (12 km), Meudon has not only an unrestricted view on Paris, deep forests and parcs, but also an interesting scientific history.

Paris

Paris is the capital city of France and a French département. Situated on the banks of the river Seine in north-central France, it is also the capital of the Île-de-France région (also known as "Paris Region"), which encompasses Paris and its suburbs.

Read more at wikipedia.

Göttingen, Lower Saxony

This recommendation was provided by Dr. Jürgen Gerhard, a colleague of mine at Maplesoft and coauthor of the book Modern Computer Algebra. He felt that Göttingen was definitely a center for German mathematics and science and well worth the visit if you are mathematically inclined.

The city is located virtually in the geographic center of the country (in the state of Lower Saxony). So whether you're visiting Munich, Cologne, Berlin, or Frankfurt, it should be very easy for you to drop by.

This web page has some nice pics and descriptions of some of the mathematical and scientific connections to the city. Names such as Gauss, Hilbert, Klein, Reimann, among others, jump out. As I have not been there myself, so I can't offer personal commentary ... but I trust Jürgen's recommendation. General tourism info on the city can be obtained at Göttingen main info site.

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Broome Bridge, Ireland

I've never been to Ireland (nor to Great Britain either), but this was the first thing that popped into my head when I heard of "mathematical tourism":

As the story goes (recounted here among other places), on October 16, 1843, the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton was walking along the Royal Canal in Dublin with his wife, when he invented the basic relation defining the quaternions. (He had previously been thinking about ways of extending the complex numbers to higher dimensions.)

Supposedly, he was so excited by this that he carved i²=j²=k²=ijk=-1 into nearby Brougham Bridge, which must have been one of the most spectacularly opaque pieces of graffiti in history. Unfortunately, there is no trace of such a carving now, but there is a plaque commemorating Hamilton's idea.

(picture courtesy of Wikipedia, licensed under the GFDL.)

According to the article, since 1989 mathematicians from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth have organized a pilgrimage from Dunsink Observatory to the bridge on the anniversary of Hamilton's discovery. So if you're ever in Dublin in October, you assuredly have someplace to go.

(But be sure not to commute there! Ha ha ha!)

Florence, Tuscany

Florence has so many great works of art that it can be overwhelming after a while. For the average visitor who might spend a day or two in this wonderful city, you can easily spend the entire time at the primary art galleries and see nothing else.

So there we were in Florence in May, family of 4 including 2 small children looking at the 3 hour line to get into the Uffizi gallery (the big one in Florence). At one point, we decided it would not be worth it. Someday, we'll return and see the famous artworks (perhaps during February or some other light month).

To our pleasant surprise, just beside the Uffizi was the History of Science Museum (Museo di Storia della Scienza. The museum was a treasure of a collection consisting of antique and historic scientific instruments of all types. Highlights include a selection of Galileo's actual telescopes, a fairly profound display of medical models depicting child birth, and interactive science demonstration equipment from centuries past.

The best part was, there were virtually no tourists. Admission was very modest (kids were free) and we had ample opportunity to explore and talk to staff.

This is an absolute gem of a museum and any mathematician, scientist, engineer, or history buff would enjoy the experience.

Ciao.

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Cambridge

The University of Cambridge has been the academic home of a long list of mathematicians. Many of the best known and most influential have held the position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. These have included Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage, Paul Dirac and the current holder Stephen Hawking.

London

Click on one of the specific math-related sites in London.

Palomar Observatory (San Diego/Los Angeles) CA

Whenever I visit San Diego, I never miss a chance to go up to Palomar Observatory. It is the home of the legendary Hale 200 inch telescope that was the reigning champion among telescopes until about 25 years ago. It is perched atop Palomar mountain and the building is open to the public. You can see through a window, the famed instrument though you cannot actually approach it. The telescope aside, it's an amazing drive from San Diego to the mountain as it goes through some of the most scenic areas in Southern California. If you have half a day or if you're driving from San Diego to Los Angeles, it's a great way to see the country and to visit a significant site. Great picnic areas and a little gift shop as well.

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