We stayed at the main house, an 1870s Italianate building with a large common area for daily breakfast, where we were assigned the Yellow Room, a spacious and serene place tastefully appointed in its namesake color with a view onto quiet Brunswick Street.

Three Houses is only a few blocks from Market Square, where every Sunday morning in the summer, a Slow Food Market takes over the small open area, not too far from the Stratford Chef's School and a high concentration of restaurants and some remarkable specialty food stores - Chocolate Barr's alone could make the trip to the town worth it - along Downie and Ontario Streets.

Our guide for a culinary walking tour led a two-hour stroll that included stops at - and snacks from - a handful of places, including the Milky Whey, Jenn and Larry's Brittle & Shakes and Revel Caffe. Some will want to check out the bronze star embedded in the street near a spot - on the steps of the festival's Avon Theater on Downie Street, on the perimeter of Market Square - where Bieber used to play his guitar and seek donations from passers-by.

Bieber is of course the most famous musician to hail from Stratford, but he's not the only one.

A vibrant (for a relatively small town) music and busking scene continues today, on the streets and in bars like the year-old Evergreen Terrace Cafe, just off Market Square, which is becoming a local hot spot. The bar music scene is a varied one, from bluegrass to folk to heavy metal.

Stratford is the type of town that makes you want to stay longer, but if your schedule permits, leave a little time on the way back to Toronto for a quick stop in the town of Shakespeare.

There, along with several antiques shops, are the Best Little Pork Shoppe (where the spicy pepperettes - sticks of cured meat - are addictive) and the Perth County Welcome Center and artisan market.

That was where I found my most durable souvenir from the trip: a T-shirt with a cartoon illustration of Justin Bieber and William Shakespeare together, smiling. "Bill and Biebs", it reads.

In a sense, the shirt captures the modern-day essence of the small town that was about eight miles (12.90 km) behind us - its unslick marketing wins you over. My conversion didn't end with Stratford itself. I had arrived there a serious Shakespeare enthusiast and not so much a Justin Bieber fan. After I left, I bought his new album.

New York Times Syndicate