Pearson Airport to St. Jacobs & Elora

How do I get from Pearson Airport to St. Jacobs or Elora?

There is no useful public transport: the GO train from Union reaches Kitchener a few times a day, and the market and the villages are a bus and a taxi beyond it — three hours from Pearson with the changes. The chauffeur is the version that runs from the arrivals curb to the market's door or the Elora Mill's at a fixed fare with the shopping in the boot; the Kitchener-Waterloo route covers the 401's timing and the Guelph page the Highway 6 road to Elora.

St. Jacobs: the market and the village

The St. Jacobs Farmers' Market on Farmers' Market Road at Weber Street is the country's largest year-round market — the outdoor stalls and the indoor buildings, the Mennonite farm stands, the summer sausage and the maple syrup, the flea market across the road — open Thursdays and Saturdays all year and Tuesdays in summer, with the Saturday the busy one and the parking lots full by ten; the chauffeur drops at the market's entrance and holds or returns, which is the reason a chauffeured market morning beats a family car in the lots. The village of St. Jacobs on King Street three kilometres north is the shops, the quilts, the Mennonite Story interpretive centre and the Village Silos, and the country roads between them are the buggies on the shoulder; the St. Jacobs Country site publishes the market days and the village's events, and the chauffeur knows both.

Elora: the gorge, the quarry and the mill

Elora sits where the Grand River enters its limestone gorge, and the village is the gorge's edge: the Elora Gorge Conservation Area's trails along the cliffs and its summer tubing run down the river, the Elora Quarry's swimming hole with its cliffs and its timed tickets in July and August, the shops and galleries on Mill Street and Metcalfe, the Elora Mill's inn and spa on the river's edge with the falls below the dining room's windows, and Fergus's Scottish stone downtown ten minutes east. The chauffeur drops at the Mill's door or on Mill Street, and a day in Elora is a morning on the gorge trail, lunch at the Mill or in the village, and the afternoon at the quarry or in the shops; the Ontario Parks and the Grand River Conservation Authority sites publish the gorge's and the quarry's rules, and the chauffeur knows the lots.

The country day: market, village, gorge, mill

The two villages are thirty minutes apart across the Mennonite farmland, and the chauffeured day that links them is the way to see the country: the St. Jacobs market at opening on a Saturday, the village's shops, the drive north through the farms to Elora, lunch at the Mill, the gorge in the afternoon, and the drive back to the city or the Waterloo hotels with the market's shopping in the boot. A family visiting a student at Waterloo or Guelph books it as the Saturday; a couple flying in for a weekend books the Elora Mill's inn for two nights and the day from its door; the three-hour minimum on the hourly booking covers the market alone, and a whole day covers both villages with the stops between.

The Elora Mill, the inns and the weekend

The Elora Mill Hotel and Spa is the reason a weekend works: the nineteenth-century mill on the river's edge rebuilt as an inn with the spa across the street, the dining room over the falls and the village outside the door. A weekend from Pearson is the Friday arrival to the Mill, the Saturday as the country day, and the Sunday departure timed to the flight, on one confirmation; the alternatives are the bed-and-breakfasts in Elora's stone houses, the Breadalbane Inn in Fergus, and the Waterloo hotels — the Delta, the Walper, the Crowne Plaza — thirty minutes south. A couple who have flown in from London or New York for a wedding at the Mill are on the wedding pattern, and the Mill's own events bring the corporate account bookings.

The seasons: market days, tubing, the quarry and the lights

The market runs all year, and the villages' seasons are the reason to come back: the tubing on the gorge from June to September, the quarry's swimming in July and August with its timed tickets, Elora's Riverfest in August and its Monster Month in October, the St. Jacobs quilt and craft shows, and the Christmas lights in both villages in December with the sleigh rides at the market. The winter drive crosses the snowbelt north of Waterloo, where the squalls off Lake Huron close the country roads a few times each winter; the chauffeur reads Ontario 511 before leaving, the vehicles run winter tyres, and a drive that cannot be made safely is rescheduled rather than attempted.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to St. Jacobs or Elora is fixed by vehicle class for the address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area, a stop on the way and the included waiting with the flight tracked; meet and greet is the paid add-on; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free; the quarry's and the tubing's tickets are bought from the conservation authority, not from us.

The Mennonite country: what the drive is

The country between St. Jacobs and Elora is Old Order Mennonite farmland — the horse-drawn buggies on the shoulder with their slow-moving-vehicle triangles, the farm gates with the hand-lettered signs for eggs, maple syrup and quilts, the meeting houses without steeples, the one-room schools — and the chauffeur drives it at the country's pace, giving the buggies the room the road signs ask for and stopping at the farm gates the passengers point to. The Mennonite Story interpretive centre in the village of St. Jacobs explains the community for a visitor who wants the context, and the Waterloo Central Railway's heritage train from the market to the village and Elmira runs on market days in summer; the Waterloo page covers the city the country surrounds.

Fergus: the Scottish town and the Highland Games

Fergus, ten minutes east of Elora on the same river, is the stone town the Scots built — the limestone downtown, the Grand's gorge running through it, the Breadalbane Inn — and its Scottish Festival and Highland Games on the second weekend of August are the largest in the country, with the pipe bands, the heavy events and the clans' tents drawing visitors from across North America who fly into Pearson for the weekend. The games weekend from the airport is the Friday arrival to Elora or Fergus, the Saturday at the games on the event pattern with the drop at the Centre Wellington sportsplex and the pickup at closing, and the Sunday departure; a clan's group of ten travels in the Sprinter on one manifest.

Winter in the villages: the lights, the sleighs and the snowbelt

Both villages keep their winter: the St. Jacobs market runs every Thursday and Saturday through the year with the sleigh rides on the December weekends and the maple syrup in March, the Village Silos' shops and the quilt shops are the December visit, and Elora's stone streets under snow with the mill's lights on the river are the winter photograph. The drive is the consideration — the country roads north of Waterloo drift in a Lake Huron squall and the chauffeur reads Ontario 511 before leaving — and the Elora Mill's winter weekend, with the spa and the dining room over the frozen falls, is the couple's booking from November to March.

Book Pearson to St. Jacobs & Elora