Canada Vacation '18: Toronto

On our second day of vacation we had couple of hours to kill before we left for Toronto. Naturally, we went back to check out the Falls. When we were getting close to our check out time, we used the Incline Railway to get back to the hotel more quickly.

It gave us a good, goodbye view of the water.

As seen outside the bus depot: 

We were going to take the train to Toronto, but we had to take a bus to get to the train station. Here's the view from the top level of the double-decker bus.

I thought the bus would have driven us straight to the train station, but the bus meandered from stop to stop for an hour and a half. I was getting worried that we would miss our train (and so were some women sitting behind us), but the bus dropped us off exactly on schedule.

There was some confusion about getting the keys to our apartment. We went exploring once that was straightened out.

We stopped by Steam Whistle Brewing. 

I like their delivery truck.

I called this the Robert Frost sidewalk. Each path gets steeper. "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." Char chose the steepest path, and she slid down it like a slide.

The condo we rented was in the 300 Front Street building. This building had 49 floors. We were on the 22nd, but that still gave you a pretty nice view from the balcony.

The CN Tower was right across the street.

I wouldn't like living in that building, though. The elevators moved at a snail's pace. You could wait ten minutes for an elevator to arrive, only to see that it was too full. Then you would have to wait ten more minutes and hope you could get on the next one.

Toronto is a huge city. 2.8 million people live there. Compare that number to the 3.1 million people who live in the entire state of Iowa.

I didn't like the crowded streets, but I enjoyed looking at all the bicycles parked along the sidewalks. Bikes were everywhere, and there were all sorts of interesting modifications to see.

On day three we visited the CN Tower. We didn't know that there was a terrorist threat against the tower that day, but that explained the police presence on several street corners.

Let's go up.

There is a section where the floor is made of glass.

Standing on the glass freaked me out a bit, but Char was undaunted.

I like the "No Spidermen" sign.

It is a quite a distance to the streets below. After an hour up there, I quoted Dug (the dog) in Up!, "Oh, I am ready to be not up high!"

The tower also offers an Edge Walk. Thrill-seekers can walk on and around the roof of the main pod of the tower hands-free by being tethered to an overhead rail system.

Charlotte asked me if I wanted to try the Edge Walk. I told her I could think of three reasons no one on the ground would want me to try that.

We continued exploring once we were back on the street. We found this dog fountain on our way to the St. Lawrence Market.

Charlotte was happy that cats also had representation.

That's quite the facade on the side of that building.

Hey! There's the market!

I did a little research on the food that best represented each city that we visited in Canada. The overwhelming opinion is that a Peameal Bacon sandwich is your go-to meal for Toronto.

Daphne commented that the peameal bacon has the thickness of ham, but it is very tender and easier to bite through. I agree. It was great, and I wanted a second second sandwich as soon as we finished this one.

Every list we read of "Things to do in Toronto" included a visit to the Bata Shoe Museum.

They have activities for kids,

Shoes to try on,

and a whole lotta shoes to learn about.

The "Manolo Blahnik: The Art of Shoes" exhibit had a video clip from the film Marie Antoinette.

I'll admit that this museum wasn't my thing, and I was bored for most of the time. I must have learned something because while we were standing in line in the Toronto Airport, I pointed to the guy standing in front of us, and I whispered to Daphne, "Hey, we know those shoes."

Next stop on our trip: Kingston!