I believe we left you about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, trudging toward an unknown hotel in downtown Toronto. Despite having emailed ahead that we would be arriving late and getting a reply with a confirming “no worries”, there was no room at the inn. The alternate hotel for which we were given vouchers ended up being quite nice. The room assigned us was a well-appointed two-room suite. We would have been happy to stay there the duration of our visit to Toronto. Nevertheless, the next morning we walked back to our original hotel at the time suggested by its management, just to find our assigned room still not quite ready. I was a little crabby but otherwise courteous, more or less.
But the hotel staff made good. We were “comped” the first night, assigned an upgraded room for the remaining two, and given coffee and pastry coupons for all three mornings at the local bistro. An added benefit is that our room has a washer/dryer (plus a kitchen) which solved our laundry problem for another week. I’ll ignore mentioning that Frances is struggling to get the dryer to do its job. As I write this, the TVs, cabinet doors and any other vertical structures are sporting damp clothing. Later the dryer behaved and we are again not advertising our approach via our odor.
And how about Toronto? Our hotel is the One King West, well located in the downtown and within walking distance of much we wanted to see. Our first full day, we did a walking tour of Toronto’s historic area. Like Vancouver, Toronto has successfully intermixed its historic structures with modern skyscrapers. Of course, historic in Toronto means one to two hundred years. Previously named York, it’s not an old city. Well that’s not totally true as the original name, a “First Nations” name, was a variation of Toronto. The capital of Upper Canada at the time but also little more than a hamlet, York was captured and burned by American forces during the War of 1812. Some say this was the British motivation for burning Washington D.C.
A first stop on our walking tour was the Anglican Cathedral, St. James. We then spent a fair amount of time wandering through the St. Lawrence Market. Most of the rest of our time we gawked at the skyscrapers, the traditional architecture, interesting fountains and a copious number of sculptures. It’s an attractive city.
We ate dinner at a recommended Indian restaurant and were delighted with the food. Yet we were surprised as to the paucity of patrons. Some bars and clubs we passed on the way back were crowded and noisy.
There’s not much else to report for the day. Our remaining agenda was modest, and we were both a bit tired. You know, riding the rails takes a lot out of you.
I should add that we have finally found “perfect” temperatures, meaning low seventies during the day. The weather, in fact, may be cooling over the next several days.
For our second full day, we played pure tourist. We walked to the CN Tower and had lunch in its “360 Restaurant”. The food was so so, but as a result we had direct access to the observation desk.
On our way back, we passed through Toronto’s Railroad Museum. Hockey fans will be perturbed that we passed by the NHL museum.
We may finally be done with warm weather for a while. There is a cooling trend for the next few days. All in all, we put in another 10,000 steps, much of it in the financial district.
I’m fighting a cold, so we’ve slowed our pace. Uh, John, how could you slow your pace even more than you already have, you wonder? (I have, but I’ll wait until the next blog posting to update you on that event.) We stayed in the hotel’s bistro for dinner. It was raw bar night. I had my fill of oysters and Frances shared her sashimi and sushi rolls.
It’s now time to catch the train from Toronto. We walked from the hotel to the station, all underground. I’m beginning to understand how Toronto residents survive their winters. The train trip to Ottawa will be five hours but the car and seats are quite comfortable—and the wine flows liberally.