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Published: August 26th 2010
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Downtown Toronto
Just like New York, Toronto has a flat iron building Toronto consistently appears in Mercer's Annual Top 20 (out of 221) Cities for the best quality of living in the world. This year it was 16th and as we drove back from the Airport with John, our very good travelling buddy who met us at arrivals, we began to see why.
Toronto is a lovely clean and well organised City. It has great beaches, bordering a wonderful Lake (Ontario), with miles of boardwalk and bicycle paths and its pretty safe too. For "Foodies" like Felicity and I, and our hosts John and his wonderful Costa Rican wife Alex, it is also a perfect City. You can get good versions of most food types you care to imagine - and some you maybe would rather not. More on that later.
We'd met John & Alex about 4 and a half years ago when spending Christmas in Burma (Myanmar) - another planned stop on this Round the World trip. We are all travellers and all foodies so when we met, it didn't take us long to gel and become lifelong long distance friends. We've met up with them in Burma every year since and plan to on this trip too. Travel
Niagara Falls- Canada
Niagara from the Canadian side not only broadens the mind. It allows you to meet some great people.
John & Alex were incredibly good to us and took off all of the week that we were in Toronto - despite John having a big event to organise in Toronto in early August. The first full day we had a guided tour around some of the key places to see or investigate further in the City. We also stopped at a Supermarket to buy stuff for a barbecue that evening. Coming from Zurich where quality Beef steak can be USD85 per kilo, it was remarkable to see it under USD20 per kilo in Toronto. We had a great barbecue !
It is a 130km trip around Lake Ontario from Toronto to Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side. It is also a touristic 'must do' day trip and John nobly volunteered to drive us there - despite having done it a gazillion times before...well quite a few anyway. We managed to hit traffic there (cause: road works) and on the way back (cause: Bon Jovi and his concert). But the time there was fun. It is true, it is better from the Canadian side than
the US, having now seen it from both sides. The first time I'd been there, it was dreadful weather and the "Maid of the Mist" was missed. But this time, there were no excuses and all 3 of us pilled on the famous boat to get soaked by the millions of gallons of water that tip over the falls. What fun.
We drove back via some Canadian vineyards and did a sampling or two. Surprisingly good was our considered opinion - for a Country (a bit like Switzerland) which isn't exactly famous for its decent wines.
That night we tried out an Indian buffet near to where John and Alex live. Run and cooked by Indians, the food was very tasty and fresh - not the overheated mush, 'buffet' can often be a by word for.
Good food and good wine and beer were starting to add the odd pound or two and it was necessary to attempt to burn them off - there was more indulging to come after all. We borrowed John & Alex's bicycles and did the lake side bicycle route heading in the direction of the City. Like London, Toronto has a City
airport, which has International flights from the US operated by Porter airlines, to be joined by Continental and Air Canada by the end of this year. Our bike route took us past the airport and through a park area and docks. After an hour & a halfs cycling we decided to turn round and head back. It was a joy to cycle around Toronto where, just like our hometown of Zurich, cyclists are well catered for with bike lanes and even bike traffic lights.
As mentioned, Toronto is a crossroads of food cultures, both international - we had a really nice Chinese one night from a very unassuming looking restaurant - and domestic. Having both English and French roots, Canadians have two domestic food streams, which occasionally seem to combine. Nothing better illustrates that than the curiously delightful "Poutine". When I was growing up in England, an evening's pub crawl was often followed by a tray of Chips in gravy. Poutine is the Quebecois twist on that delicacy. Its base is Chips (French fries), gravy and cheese curds but to that you can add all-sorts - such as bacon, sausage, peas, egg, meat and so on. If Google and
wikipedia are to be believed, Poutine has moved from being a basic Canadian fast food in 1957 to something more upmarket and global today. I'm adding a picture of the Poutine I sampled to give you an idea - I take no responsibility for any nausea this may give you !
Toronto's landmark is the CN Tower which at 550 meters dominates the skyline and currently is in fact the World's largest tower. Its possible to buy a ticket and look out from the observation deck, but by far the better option is to go and eat lunch or brunch at the revolving restaurant which forms part of the tower. The trip up is included in the cost of the meal and when we went up, this was the quicker route upwards. It's often best to book - especially if you want a table by the window - but we had no problems by going on spec. The food was good and reasonably priced and the service pretty attentive. Clearly the view was spectacular, although we experienced slightly less than the 100-120km range you can expect on the clearest of days.
As well as being culinary diverse, Toronto
The Maid of the Mist
...well one of them anyway also has a diverse population - both ethnically and imaginatively. We were driving down a street in the centre of town when we spotted a house whose front garden was a shrine to the Muppet show and other such puppet characters. I'm sure there are some countries where they'd fine you, if not commit you, for such an unusual taste !
Our days in Toronto zipped by and a week later it was time to move on, back to the USA and Tampa, Florida. With Canada being USA-light, we had to clear US Immigration and customs at Toronto, but that went pretty smoothly and meant that the flight from Canada was treated like a domestic arrival in Tampa.
Toronto is a bit like the best bits of Zurich and London combined. Felicity and I decided, this is definitely a place we could live if the opportunity arose.
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Andrew Walsh
non-member comment
Poutines all round?
Rard, poutines eh? We were ahead of our time in H.G. Do they also mix well with a pint of Boddys?