Blogs from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, North America

Advertisement

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto October 10th 2023

Toronto was only one day of our two week itinerary, and our time was largely spent in its museums and restaurants. We started our day at the Royal Ontario Museum, the largest and most visited museum in Canada with exhibits of art, Canadian and world culture, and natural history, including dinosaurs! The ROM demanded a full day on its own but then we wouldn’t have been able to visit the Art Gallery of Ontario, the second largest art museum in Toronto, with outstanding works by Canadian, First Nations and Inuit artists, among others. A particular revelation was the artwork from the Group of Seven, once known as the Algonquin School, a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933. I didn’t understand Canadian art until my fourth trip to the country when I finally visited ... read more
Cathedral Church of St. James
Toronto Skyline from Planet Traveler Hostel
View from Planet Traveler Hostel

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto July 28th 2023

Toronto doesn't look like Manhattan. But we like it anyway We once heard that Toronto often is used as filming location for movies and TV-series where scenes from Manhattan are needed. Apparently it is very expensive to actually shoot in Manhattan. So instead they go to Canada, where it is far less expensive, and in Toronto it is possible to make it look like Manhattan. So when we arrived in Toronto we expected to find a city that looks like Manhattan. Our expectations weren't met because Toronto doesn't look like Manhattan at all. But it was a nice city anyway. Downtown and City Hall We wouldn't call Nathan Phillips Square, the Toronto sign and the city hall the city centre. But it... read more
The Toronto sign and the city hall
 Nathan Phillips Square
Queen station

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto June 5th 2023

After a breakfast of crepes, banana and maple syrup, Lyn arrived and we headed off to Aldershot to catch the train. I told you that you’d see more of Lyn J Lyn is one of Susan’s besties and they’ve known each other for around 10 years. She’s a beauty aesthetician (therapist in the UK), with skills in facials, pedicures, manicures, various facial balms, creams and oil, and she trims Susan’s hair on demand. A good person to know IMHO! As we drove east to Aldershot we saw 5 parachutists floating down from the sky into a field. I was fascinated by how slowly they appeared to be descending. We saw one of the parachutists make contact with the ground, as the small plane we assumed they’d jumped from came into land only about 15m away from ... read more
Me with the CN Tower growing out of my head. Lyn on the left of the photo, Susan on the right.
Lyn & me on the top deck of the big train.
HOHO map. You just gotta do the HOHO!

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto April 15th 2023

Tough for all of us to leave Toronto but the Uber is booked for 6.30. The skylight in our top floor bedroom generally helps with waking up but it still feels early. We beat the sunrise but only just. And what a beautiful sunrise it was. Looks like another stunning day ahead. But...we'll be in transit for most of it. Uber costs $100 but the ride goes well this time of day. Toronto traffic out to Pearson Airport is notoriously bad but our ride is smooth. Until we get to the airport. Ubers and Taxis are double parked at the terminal and there are so many people checking in and dropping bags. We foolishly assume that we can check in and drop bags at the self serve terminals. Nope! We have to download an app for ... read more
230415 Mamaroneck Front Yard
230415 Hovercraft
230415 Mamaroneck Tennis

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto April 12th 2023

Our Airbnb is awesome. Awesome location and so comfortable. It's great to have some space and the character of these old homes makes it such a warm place to stay. The street has an idyllic feel about it. The sky is blue, dogs are basking on front porches in the spring sunshine, pre-schoolers are singing in the front yard of a daycare and birds are chirpings in the trees home to busy little black squirrels. Toronto feels like it's awoken from hibernation this week and everyone is making the most of the weather. We promised the Fosters we'd bring the warm weather, but this is actually ridiculous. It is beyond great and the relief and joy is palpable. It's an unfamiliar feeling for us from the seasonless Brisbane. Have I mentioned that we have a Cobs ... read more
230412 Big Red Chair
230412 Snirt
230412 Toronto Skyline

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto April 11th 2023

While our hotel appears to teeter over Niagara Falls, it's a 15 minute walk down to the edge of the waterfall. Milla has awoken and still looks like death warmed up. Poor thing. She's being such a trooper about it - resting when she can and not complaining. Niagara Falls (Twin Towns) is like a ghost town and we settle for Subway breakfast rolls before walking down to the water's edge. It's sunny but windy and as we get closer the mist from the falls starts to thicken. It feels like it's raining and the cool mist is refreshing in the sun. It would be far less refreshing if we were here even a few days earlier when it was 15 degrees cooler. We watch a boat full of tourists slowly enter the whitewash and mist ... read more
230411 Kenny Jules
230411 Niagara Falls
230411 The Beaches Airbnb

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto July 6th 2022

We’re up at the crack of dawn to bid our tearful farewells to Emma and Michael as they head off to the airport to catch their flight back to Alberta. Today we’re supposed to be heading to Europe - San Sebastián in northern Spain via Lisbon. Well that was the plan, but I wake up in a cold sweat in more ways than one. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed a cupful of razor blades. It couldn’t be the dreaded virus surely, could it? I’ve been jabbed so often my arm feels like a pin cushion, and anyway I’ve had the disease already, only about four months ago. I Google the stats. It seems that somewhere around 3% of people in Toronto who currently have the virus have had it before, and getting yourself jabbed over ... read more
Scarborough Beach Marina

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto July 5th 2022

This morning we’ve got tickets for Toronto’s iconic gothic revival style mansion, Casa Loma, and then this afternoon we plan to head to the beach. … well that was the idea, but we look out the window at grey skies and rain, which might put paid to the bit about the beach. The beach we planned to go to was at Scarborough Bluffs a few kilometres further along Lake Ontario's shoreline. We saw some Torontians lying in the sand sunning themselves on the shoreline near our apartment a few days ago, but noticed that none of them were looking all that keen on going anywhere near the water. Yesterday we found out why; it’s apparently way too cold even for winter-hardened Canadians. Hang on, it’s still liquid, so it can’t be all that cold, and anyway ... read more
Conservatory, Casa Loma
Casa Loma
Tunnel entrance, Casa Loma

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto July 3rd 2022

We all wake up feeling surprisingly well rested. We decide that the white noise of the traffic coming in through the cardboard covering our windows where the glass is supposed to be mightn’t be all that sleep disturbing after all. I suggest to Issy that we should record it and play it back when we’re trying to get to sleep elsewhere. She doesn’t look overly convinced, although she says we might be onto something if we can somehow edit out the sirens that she says seem to go off at about ten minute intervals day and night (I’m now thinking it might perhaps just have been me who slept well). We start to wonder how safe the apartment might be. It didn’t burn down last night despite the fire alarm, so that’s a tick, and the ... read more
Nathan Phillips Square
Scotiabank Arena
Old Toronto City Hall

North America » Canada » Ontario » Toronto July 2nd 2022

This morning we’ve got “timed entry” tickets for the famed CN Tower which is only a block or so from our apartment. We were warned when we bought them not to turn up early, and to not bother turning up at all if we were going to get there late. We walk out the apartment block door straight onto the end of a queue. We’re still a few hundred metres from where we need to be, so I think we’re now in real trouble. Oh hang on, these guys aren’t going to the Tower, they’re queued up to get into today’s double header baseball games between the Toronto Blue Jays and the evil empire from Tampa in Florida. They're on at the Rogers Centre which just happens to be right at the base of the Tower. ... read more
Ripley’s  aquarium of Canada
Toronto Music Garden
Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada




Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 5; qc: 71; dbt: 0.0721s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb