Canada - Toronto - Parks, Lake and the Big Tower

Day 1 - Tuesday 27 August

Well, technically, the Riona and Ruth big adventure started on Day 0 as we headed to London and stayed overnight with Caitlin. It was a good start to the trip and nice to see her, albeit briefly.  I think I lost ungraciously at cards (OK, I know I did...).

As Caitlin pedalled off to work on the Tuesday, Riona and I headed to the lovely Jewish bakery near Caitlin's and enjoyed breakfast.

Our flight was early afternoon so we ambled off to Heathrow, checked in and eventually we were airborne.

The flight was uneventful (all the best are) and we landed in JFK airport, New York, to suffer over an hour's worth of queues entering the US.  Once entered we promptly exited the country for our flight to Canada.

It was now 1900 local time which was 0000 BST and I was fading.  A make-up lady caught Riona's attention as she was taking polaroid photos.   Riona is too young to remember these.  I recall the excitement of standing in my Grandma's garden watching an image come out of the camera like magic.  Anyway, the lady took a shot of us in our weary smiles.  Riona does sleeplessness better than me.

It was a disorganised bundle onto the plane to Toronto.  I admit to forgoing any British "after you please" stuff and shoved my way on along with everyone else. There was a large family gathering that were somehow taking over twice the hand luggage limit each on board so there was a lot of to'ing and fro'ing as everything was shoe-horned in.

Anyway, we left the US and were soon landing in sleepy Toronto, midnight local time.

Public transport was asleep so we hopped in a taxi and easily found our way to our BnB.  And sleeeeeeeeep.

Day 2  - Wednesday 28 August

We had a plan, mainly organised by Riona, and once we'd roused ourselves we were off.  Our bike hire failed at the first hurdle as it required internet connection to pick up the code.  Ah well, a long walk then it was.

Definitely in the right country.

We spotted free sunscreen attached to a play park.   So Riona made us (re) sun block up.  

The harbourside.

Yay!

Along the harbour is the Toronto Music Garden.    It is designed around Bach's 'Suite No. 1 in G Major for unaccompanied cello' and hosts different plantings/pathways based on the various movements.  It was a pleasant wander and also gave us our first view of the CN Tower.

We stopped for our first iced coffee and then continued into downtown Toronto.

Riona and the duck share a dip.

We headed to St Lawrence Market for a late lunch. 

Then we headed east towards the Distillery District.  We couldn't resist this photo opportunity on the way...

Flat iron building.

The Distillery District hails from 1832.  Obviously once a hive of activity it fell into disuse.  It was refurbished and re-opened in  2003 as a hip, arty, cultural quarter of Toronto.

And here I am being hip, arty and cultural.

Lots of Victorian architecture remains.

You just have to try the beer/cider when in the zone...

Next up was the CN Tower.  This is the thing to do in Toronto and I was keen to do it early on our trip so we could orientate ourselves to the city.  

It opened in 1976 and at 553 m high it became the tallest free standing structure in the world, holding this title for an incredible 34 years.  

We only rose to 350 m but the views were outstanding as you'd expect.  

Looking towards the harbour and Lake Ontario.

In 1994 the glass floor was built/opened so we just had to go stand.

 
We stayed up for quite a while taking in the views and watching the sun go down.

Awesome.

Whilst the sun set we spied on the Blue Jays baseball game in the Rogers Centre, 350 m beneath us.  

And that was our first day in Toronto.  Exhausted already.