Article content continued

Don’t get these tourists wrong: They said they had a great time in Canada. They couch-surfed with local people for most of their trip, and call their journey through some of Canada’s busiest metropolises an “incredible adventure” where they met “the most wonderful Canadians.”

Nonetheless, the couple, who just got home Friday, describe their overwhelming impression of the country as “great oceans of car parks.”

Chabowski said they expected better infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians. She said Ottawa was one of the “better” places they saw.

“We just had this impression of Canada being quite different, a bit more European,” said Chabowski, who has also visited the United States.

She said the strip-mall culture was disappointing. “The downtown core, which in most places was quite pleasant, was surrounded by this sea of Tim Hortons and McDonald’s and Walmarts and another Tim Hortons,” she said. “You had to fight your way through to get to the nice stuff.”

It’s a far cry from Aarhus, where bike paths and sidewalks are built in to almost every street.

“We were treated like second class citizens compared to cars. The air was dirty, and the constant noise from horns and engines was unpleasant.”

Aside from visiting major cities including Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax, Chabowski told the Citizen they did visit more scenic areas including Algonquin Park, the Bay of Fundy and the Gaspé region.

Obviously they weren’t visiting in February. @EmmMacfarlane@jandrewpotter — Bill King (@BillKingLanark) August 4, 2014

Having asked Canadians how we feel about their reliance on vehicles, the tourists picked out a few examples: “Trying to solve traffic problems by building more roads is like trying to solve obesity by buying bigger trousers,” they quoted one person from Ottawa.