Perhaps someone could teach me the difference in pronunciation? It's rather confusing to differentiate by ear, without any context. Nonetheless, Hamilton is Canada's steeltown and has everything you would expect from it too.

First of all, the population is humongous and makes the city a vibrant area of the greater Toronto. With over half a million inhabitants, one renowned university and home of the Montreal Canadians' farm team; Hamilton has to be one of the best steeltown in the world. Plus, you're only hours to Quebec and minutes to the United States.

Hamilton is also divided by an escarpment, something between a mountain and a hill. The escarpment gives a spectacular view on the city at night and early in the morning. Fog, smog and the rest don't give a clean view otherwise. One day, I wanted to photograph Hamilton's skyline from the escarpment. As I drove along the winding road on edge of the big hill, I could not find the right spot to stop and take a picture. I finally drove further inland, in hopes of finding a greener and wider open area with a small hill. And I did! Unfortunately, it was a dump site.

The best thing I've seen so far in Hamilton has to be the taxis. I'm not sure if there is only one taxi company in the city or if they adopted a law like in New York to have all vehicules the same color, but they certainly chose the right car model. I'm not a car expert, nor do I like cars in general, but having taxis with a frame similar to the one of a police car is an excellent idea. Maybe it was not meant to be like this and that used police cars are just cheaper to buy than other cars, but it certainly makes me think twice before pushing the gas pedal too far.

Perhaps that is why most drivers here go exactly at the speed limit. Or perhaps they just want to be conservative on gas. With rising cost of petrol, a steeltown makes no exception for gas prices, and that's definitively not a steal.