The Rooms

It is a bit overcast today and as Barry and Marlene are a bit stiff from all the walking yesterday, it is a perfect day to visit The Rooms: St. John’s Provincial Museum, Archives, and Art Gallery. This magnificent building that soars into the city’s skyline, gets its name from the steep-roofed buildings on the shore of every fishing community where families came together to process their catch.
The Rooms, opened last year, combine striking 21st century technology with the past, and tell the story of Newfoundland and Labrador through art, artifacts, archaeology, architecture and archival records. It is also a wonderful place to eat as the café on level 4 has scrumptious food and a view like no other in the city. We sample the fish chowder, the fishcakes (salmon, halibut, and cod) and the seafood au gratin. If you don’t like seafood, Newfoundland cuisine offers moose and seal dishes, as well as tangy berry desserts. But there is a saying here “You can’t go wrong with the fish” and we have experienced the truth of that advice over and over.
We depart four hours later, very impressed with The Rooms. We regret that David will probably not have time to visit the Geo Centre, another attraction we can highly recommend. It is fitting that a province nicknamed The Rock has a world-class geological interpretation centre built into the rock of Signal Hills which forms many of the interior walls. We have managed to rent a car for the next two days (almost impossible in Newfoundland on short notice) and must pick it up