Advertisement
Published: April 16th 2010
Edit Blog Post
The Canadian falls
Me up top and the Maids of Mist down below I confess that Toronto was chosen at random in response to someone asking "so are you going to Toronto when you're in Canada?". And given the limited time in which I spent researching, I went in fairly blind, and without a word of French.
So after my plane ride from Vancouver amongst a bunch of school marching band geeks, I arrived into a bleak Toronto to a top temperature of 3 degrees. Walking to the hostel I thought it had started raining, but no - that was SNOW falling. Not to be deterred by such extremities, I explored the city on foot until I felt the first signs of frost bite and planned my weekend in a city I knew bugger all about (except that I would unfortunately be leaving before the next Toronto Blue Jays baseball home game). But in wondering around I found that Toronto is known for its great live music and arts scene, and that many of Hollywoods movies are filmed here. I also noticed the different communities around, and it really does have some stunning buildings which are illuminated by great lighting at night. I felt safe all over and only stumbled into a dodgy
Bath time
Niagara from up top, the force of the water is incredible looking area once. Anyway.....
Niagara Falls was number one on the to-do list, and thank goodness the day was sunny for the bus tour ride that luckily also included a wine tour. I met Englishman Sam from my hostel and we became travel buddies for the rest of my time in Toronto. The waterfalls, which divide Canada from the USA, are amazing but for some reason not as large as I expected. The force of the falls was experienced best first hand on the 'Maids of Mist' tour which had only started their tour season that day. You get soaked but it's well worth it, since the rest of Niagara is fairly tacky. We also travelled through the surrounding small Ontario townships which are determined to keep their British look, and finished with a wine tasting (who knew Canada made ok wine). Upon our return to Toronto, Sam and I explored the city at night for hours.
Sunday - and new pal Sam and I walked EVERYWHERE, covering the entire sights of the city. The CN Tower had a great view, Kensington Markets were unique and gave a great feel of the city, China Town was like most
CN Towner
Lots high China Towns, and the University covers much of the city with it's gorgeous historic buildings. The walk to Casa Loma was long and in the end we didn't bother going inside this Castle, and it took us all over the neighbourhood since we didn't pay much attention to the map so by the end we felt we had seen ALL of Toronto. We opted for getting the subway back to the hostel as we were stuffed. But were troubled trying to buy a takeaway beer after 5pm on a Sunday - not easily done apparently, so it was a quick pint at the local and a cheap Roast at the hostel to wrap up my Canadian experience.
I really enjoyed Canada, it has the attitude I appreciate and the scenery I adore. The people seem to be as laid back as I prefer and it's English and French influences make it so just so god damn cute. As Arnie said - I'll be back!
Next stop - New York, New York.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 7; qc: 46; dbt: 0.043s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Amaru
non-member comment
Toronto...
Ahhh... you didn't visit the Hockey Hall of Fame ?!? (that's proper hockey by the way.... with skates... on ice, not that weird running on astro turf) ;)