Day 7 - fishes and flights

Today is now our last day. We decided on a breakfast outside of the hotel. We went to Fran’s diner. This is a really great old fashioned diner where the waitresses walk around with coffee pots.

The food was delicious.

Our next stop is the aquarium. We hadn’t planned to visit here, but given the extra time we had, we thought it might be fun. We must have been temporarily crazy because it’s a Sunday and every family in Toronto seemed to be there. No matter, we still had a good explore and it was really very nice. Lots of odd fishes and creatures.

Late flights aren’t great as you seem permanently on edge and checking your watch, but we made the most of our time and visited the old engine sheds in Toronto where the have loads of old trains - all free to view.

And that’s it, back on the plane and flying back to Christmas in the UK.

It’s been a wonderful trip.

Day 6 - Hope and history

After a wonderful sleep, we got up (I had the most glorious bath) and had a delicious breakfast in the hotel. Our train back to Toronto is at 3pm, so we don’t have heaps of time here. But we could have a really nice walk around the town. The snow has stopped, but it is bitterly cold. There were a few people around, but not many.

The houses are big and we saw a school that looked like it was from the movies.

We collected our bags from the hotel and made our way to the station. The station is beautiful. Please don’t ever renovate it!

We were soon back in the hustle and bustle of Toronto. We went to the theatre district (where there are three theatres) and they had a walk of fame with stars of Canada. Quite a few stars we had heard of and quite a lot we hadn’t. We saw a bowling alley and decided we would give that a go, but they were fully booked!

When we were on our way to the Christmas distillery market a few nights ago, I got chatting to a lovely young woman who worked at a museum called 'Mackenzie House’. She had said we should pop by, so given we now had extra time, we decided to.
Mackenzie House is a historic building in downtown Toronto. It was the final home of William Lyon Mackenzie, the first mayor of Toronto and a key figure in Canadian political history, particularly known for leading the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion. He was actually Scottish by birth, and a journalist. He founded newspapers that were critical of Upper Canada (part of British Canada) which moved out indigenous peoples and handed them over to the British government (why is it always us?).

The house was beautiful. Very carefully restored and loved by the staff. They also had a historical print shop with an operational 19th-century printing press, showcasing the tools of the trade that Mackenzie would have used as a publisher. We were able to design our own Christmas card and have it printed on the original press. AND my friend from the bus was there, and she showed us all around. So sweet.

We couldn’t shake the urge to go bowling, so we looked up another alley in the same chain, and we were only a few minutes walk away, so off we went.

It’s called Ballroom Bowl and they have what is called duck pin. The lanes are shorter, the balls are smaller (like an outdoor bowls ball) and the pins are shorter. We were the only people there! You get an hour for the lane and you can play as many times as you like. It was brilliant fun.

Day 5 - expect the unexpected

We are all packed up and ready to go. Ready for our last day here before flying home.

But wait. A text from Virgin Atlantic telling us that our flight has been cancelled and to check online for the next flight. The next flight is….Monday night. And we are at Friday morning. Oh.

After allowing ourselves a bit of time to let it sink in, we went into planning mode. Extend the hotel. Extend the cattery. Extend the car park. Inform the family that they might have to collect the turkey!

We called Virgin and after speaking with the lovely Tim, we managed to get a flight on Sunday night instead. So two extra days.

With the help of Gemini AI, and a search on a cute winter village to reach without a car, we found Port Hope. We booked the first train (unfortunately 5:30pm) and a hotel in the town and then got on with our day.

We visited the Allan Gardens conservatories. A short walk from our hotel. It’s very cold today and the wonderful green houses were a welcome respite. They housed lots of tropical plants and we had a pleasant hour wandering through them.

We then went to buy some new underwear and socks for the additional stay and a small holdall, and then packed a few things and made our way to the station.

The train was running late, which was a bit of a pain, but once we were on, we sped along to Port Hope and arrived to a deserted station. The trains here are absolutely huge. Great big polar express style trains with big loud whistles!

When we got off at Port Hope, we were literally in the middle of nowhere in a snow storm. We had to walk across the train tracks to get to the deserted car park. No sign of a taxi or life in general, so we walked through the town and found our hotel. The Carlyle. This used to be a bank, and has ten rooms. We picked up our keys from the post box and let ourselves into the most wonderful room. Two big comfy beds, a fireplace, a coffee machine and a BATH.

The hotel offered us dinner which we kindly accepted and it was one of the best meals we’ve had. Andrew had pork chop and mash, Oliver had a panini, and I had salmon. Amazing.

We went out after dinner and braved the snow and the wind for a 15 minute walk through this film set style town.

Into bed and the land of nod.

Day 4 - islands and a distillery

Today we woke up to beautiful sunshine, and warmer temperatures.

We had planned to do some more inside stuff, but given the weather we swapped things around and decided to get a ferry to Toronto Island.

The island is actually a peninsula, turned into an island by a sand storm. You can get a 15 minute ferry from the harbour front to three sections of the island. There’s the central part, which in the summer, is a picnic destination with beaches and cafes. There’s Hanlan’s point, which is more secluded and has a nudist beach. Then there’s Ward’s Island which is the main residential part.

In the winter, the ferries only go to Ward’s.

We had a little wait for the ferry, so we wandered along the harbour front for a while. The water was so still.

We got into the no frills ferry (no seats, no inside) and in 15 minutes we stepped off into a magical world of ramshackle houses mixed with the kind of houses you dream of buying and running away to. Off grid. It’s cold today, the water in the dock is almost frozen solid.

We spent a few hours wandering round, looking at the houses and wondering how it would feel to live there.

When boarding the ferry back, we were joined by many locals with their bikes (the island is private car free) going to downtown Toronto to get their shopping.

The view of the Toronto skyline as you come back from the island is a real sight to behold.

We then mooched around a bit, did a bit of shopping and had a coffee and then got on a tram to the Distillery District. This area has been regenerated from his distillery past to a rather exclusive area of shops, galleries and condos. We had hoped to be able to walk around it, but they had their annual Christmas Village, so the only way in was to pay for a ticket. We did.

As Christmas markets go, it was actually very nice, but after an hour or so we had enough and left. We decided to walk back as this would be our last evening.

On the way, we noticed Lawrence Market, which is a proper food market. Meat and fish galore. We spent 45 minutes there and then set off back to the hotel.

Toronto has so many places to eat and so many different varieties of cuisine. The smells are amazing as you walk along the streets.

Tonight we opted for Ramen. It was so delicious. Another tiring, but happy day. Another night where we sleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow!

Day 3 - donuts 🍩 and art

Today’s first stop is meeting Eitan, our tour guide and a donut tour.

We met at Cops doughnut in the Kensington district - hailed as a rather trendy area. Cops is named after the fact that cops like doughnuts and coffee. It’s a tiny little shipping container with stairs up to it and is painted bright pink. Nice branding. Their doughnuts are small and freshly made to order. We has six cinnamon and six “dunkers”. The dunkers are based on a Canadian lunchbox favourite of biscuits and icing. They were delicious. Warm and melted in the mouth. A great start.

Our second stop was Bloomers. These specialise in vegan doughnuts and snacks. These doughnuts were huge. You could easily have one between four. We tried the chocolate dipped (a ring doughnut with chocolate icing) and a jam (jelly) filled one. Eitan proudly pulled a pair of scissors from his bag and snipped each doughnut into bite sized pieces. All delicious. Already feeling quite full.

On the way to the next stop, Ethan took us to see some street art, which we loved.

We started walking towards Kensington Market and past an old gasworks factory that has been transformed into a rather posh food court. Maybe it was the weather, a rather grey day, or maybe it was really the area, but we found it to be quite grungy. The streets were dirty and the houses a mush mash of boarded up or painted ‘artistically’.

Guide books say that Kensington Market is thriving and bustling. It was quite the opposite. It really did feel like a bit of a dump!

Eitan took us to our next stop - this wasn’t actually a doughnut stop, but rather a Jamaican patty shop. He told us a story of how when the shop was first established it confused locals, as Canadians use the word ‘patty’ to describe their burger meat. So the owners of the market made them rename their shop to ‘Golden Patty’ to differentiate them from their meat counterparts.

I had a veggie one, Oliver had jerk pork and Andrew had jerk beef. They were really tasty and a nice break from the sugar.

Finally we went to Dipped. The last shop on the tour. We had a Brown Butter sea salt and a chestnut chocolate filled to share. I wasn’t a fan of any of these. The boys thought they were ok. I am a sugar lover, but this was a bit too much even for me.

We did learn some things about the area, but it wasn’t the best tour we have ever done.

We went to the gas works place for a (savoury) lunch and then planned the rest of our day.

We decided to set off for AGO - the art gallery of Ontario. It’s in a beautiful building and it’s huge!

As with most galleries and museums outside of the UK, you have to pay to get in. The plus side of that is that all exhibitions are included so once you are in, you are in.

There were three really good exhibitions from artists we had not heard of - Joyce Wieland (who uses huge quilts to portray messages of patriotism and love), Naoko Matsubara(who uses wood blocks to print art) and David Blackwood (bases his work from his childhood in Newfoundland).

They were all absolutely brilliant.

We decided to get a tram back to the hotel. The trams are super easy and clean and quick.

For dinner we went back to the Kensington Market area and found a cute restaurant that had been a vehicle testing garage. The boys had pizza and I had pasta. So delicious.

We were so tired that we treated ourselves to a taxi back to the hotel and once again flopped into bed.

Day 2 - electric power and hydro power

After a long and deep sleep we were up with the alarm and back to the PATH to find our car hire.

Despite Dave’s wonderful instructions yesterday, we spent a good 30 minutes trying to find the rental desk. Finally found, the lady at the desk suggested we take an electric car. So we were presented the keys to a nice blue Tesla.

We have never even stepped foot in one, so after trying all sorts of improbable ways to get in, we had to ask a passer by, who showed us what to do. Next came 20 minutes of figuring out how to turn it on! Thankfully, Oliver was up for the challenge and before long we were on the road.

Today we are heading to Niagara.

But first, breakfast. As we set off on the freeway, Oliver typed “breakfast” into the satnav, and the first option was “Stacked” a pancake place at an out of town shopping mall. Oh how Stacked fitted the breakfast brief! Like the set from an old American movie, with Formica tables and wood walls, and a server walking around with a permanent pot of coffee.

Oliver and I both went for a stack of pancakes, while Andrew went for an all singing all dancing plate of eggs, bacon, potatoes and toast and it came with its own pile of pancakes. Absolutely delicious!

After a few hours of the freeway we entered snowy Niagara. It was quite a shock to see ugly high rise hotels and a casino. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it seemed a bit grubby. Concrete hotels that looked very 1970s. No matter, we aren’t here for the architecture, we are here for the falls. We parked the car and walked to the visitor centre. Deserted. Just hardly anyone around. Again, it’s geared up for some serious footfall, but we just walked to the front and bought three tickets for “behind the falls”. It’s a small foot tunnel that takes you behind the water and means you can see them a bit lower down.

Ponchos at the ready we got into the lift and made our way down. Due to the rather, this part of the falls is actually frozen, but you can hear the power of the water in front of them. It was great to see them from below, and we didn’t need our ponchos - but I put mine on anyway!

We left there after taking some photos and headed back up to the shop and the cafe.

We then joined the rest of the brave visitors (maximum 20 people) outside to experience the falls from the top. They are vast and they are absolutely jaw droppingly beautiful. You can see them on TV or in books, but nothing can prepare you for seeing them in person.

We had a cute rainbow over the falls the whole time we were there, as the sun made a little appearance.

We left after a few hours, so grateful for the lack of tourists and then drove to Niagara on the Lake for some lunch.

To get there we took a small local road and passed the most amazing houses. All decked out for Christmas. This is wine land and the houses were broken up by fields of vines.

Just 20 minutes of driving past these beautiful properties was enough to make our day.

But then we came to the town. Oh boy, what a place.

One street with quaint shops and cafes - so typically North American. We found a café and Andrew and I had soup (green lentil for me and quinoa and chicken for Andrew). Oliver had lasagne. Full and happy we make our way back to the car for the drive home.

As we left there we decided to try ‘valet mode’ on the car. Unfortunately we then couldn’t switch it off! This disabled the satnav, the trunk, limited the speed and most functions. We tried all sorts of pins and resets to no avail. Panic soon set in, because we had to charge the car to get us back to Toronto, we didn’t know if we could even charge in valet mode. After a bit of googling we found a place to charge the car (the car park of a Tim Hortons, oh joy) and got us back to downtown Toronto just in time for the second half of the ice hockey match on the screen in a nice restaurant. The Leafs (yeah, that’s the correct spelling) beat Chicago by 4 v 2.

Well done to Mr B and his excellent driving and to Oliver for copilot skills. We plopped into bed absolutely exhausted again

Day 1 - a tower, a subterranean world and some lights

We poured into our beds last night after arriving at the Holiday Inn, downtown Toronto, at 8:15pm. We found a place near the hotel selling subs, so we ate there in tired silence and went to bed. The hotel room has two double beds and we have a view looking into a block of condos, which is absolutely fascinating. Watching the Sunday evening lives of the residents of Toronto.

Somehow (I should imagine sheer exhaustion) we beat the jetlag and all woke up with alarm to the start of a snow flurry.

We ate a huge buffet breakfast in the hotel and then set of to our first destination - the CN Tower.

The subway system was so easy to navigate. Tap your credit card (other European cities take note - not having to buy a reloadable piece of plastic) and you are off. We took line 1 (yellow) five stops (we are at ‘College’, then ‘TMU’, ‘Queen’, ‘King’) to Union Station. This is likened to Central Station in NY and you can see why.

A beautiful central hall with an ornate ceiling and busy concourses beneath connecting mainline rail to the subway. The subway was spotless, no graffiti and so beggars. The trains are silver tins of loveliness.

To find the CN tower we simply followed the signs through some tunnels. We stepped outside and was blasted with the icy air of -11 degrees! It’s cold, but with the right clothes it’s all ok. Just difficult to take photos without a glove.

We were the only people entering the CN tower. They are clearly geared up for thousands of visitors, as they had barriers and waiting areas, but we just walked to the ticket lady, then the lift lady and before we knew it we were shot up the 114 floors in the great glass elevator and looking out over Toronto.

Despite the weather we actually had clear views and were able to look out across the endless skyscrapers, but also Lake Ontario. It’s so big it looks like the sea, there’s no way you can see the other side.

We then went up a few more levels the “the Top”. It didn’t feel that much higher, and wasn’t really worth the ticket price, but again, as it was just us there, it felt special.

We made our way back down, through the massive gift shop and back to the food court of Union. Again, this place is spotless. Oliver pointed out that if it was Lakeside it would be filled with rubbish. But no, not a spot. Oliver had Tim Hortons and Andrew chose noodles, and I am still full up from breakfast, so had some wedges. Bellies refilled we took ourselves back the the great hall and met Dave, a kind looking 70 something Canadian who was going to help us and 4 other people (two from Chicago, two from Germany) to navigate the PATH.

The PATH is a maze of underground tunnels linking various buildings around Toronto. It was started in 1900 and completed in 1990. The PATH spans more than 30 kilometres of restaurants, shopping, services and entertainment to ensure that the fine people of this city never need to brave the vicious winters outside. This was such an interesting tour. Dave gave us lots of tips of how to not get lost and lots of interesting facts about how they are planning to extend it.

After two interesting hours we were spat out at the City Hall and a cute ice rink that had just been groomed by the Zamboni. We watched various skill levels for half an hour and then went to warm up with a coffee as a lovely restaurant called Sud Forno. Earmarked for a nice dinner one night.

Our last stop was the Big Red Bus tour of “Holiday Lights”. By now we were absolutely exhausted. The travel and walking catching up with us, so this was the perfect end to the day.

The bus drove us for 75 minutes around the main streets of Downtown Toronto with some history and facts thrown in, and the chance to see some of the beautiful Christmas lights in offices and shops.

It’s been a fabulous start to the holiday.