Springtime in Toronto - Day Three

 

Photo: ubdining.com

We're getting into a routine. The young 'uns went off to Tim Hortons for breakfast goodies while we did the bathroom thing, and we were set to hit the tourist hotspots quite early.

Our first stop was the CN Tower, just a few yards away from our room, but quite a few yards further from the door of the hotel, given the walk back to the elevators from our room. Outside, as we wandered along the edge of the Rogers Centre, some Blue Jays fans were already gathering for the day's game against the Guardians, bags strategically placed by one of the entry gates to the stadium. This was before 1100hrs, and the game kicked off, or batted off, or whatever, at 1900hrs. That's some devotion. I just looked up which city the Guardians represent and it's Cleveland, Ohio, so almost a local derby.

The CN Tower security gate wasn't too busy, nor was the ticket office, and we wangled a 15% discount on the production of a Metrolinx Presto card, that is the travel ticket for the TTC and GO Transit. It still cost an arm and a leg, though, and I can't help thinking that it's a bit of a rip-off, as are most of the attractions in downtown Toronto.

The queue for the lifts meandered around a sort of an exhibition, the tower celebrates it's fiftieth anniversary this year, but it didn't take long before we were standing in the glass-sided, partially glass-floored elevator and whizzing up the tower at 10-15mph. The young woman operating the lift gave us some statistics in a curious sing-song voice as we rose, but when asked questions, she answered in a perfectly ordinary voice, so perhaps her sing-song thing helps her to remember her lines.

At the main observation deck it was fairly busy, although it wasn't too bad. It's been smartened up a fair bit since DW and I were last here, probably twenty years ago now. A lot of the windows were now floor-to-ceiling, and leaned out a bit, so by pressing myself against the glass, I could look straight down and see the sloping window of our hotel room. The views are, of course, wonderful. Across Lake Ontario to Upstate New York, all of the lake's north shore from Hamilton in the west to Oshawa in the east, and the whole elongated conurbation that is Toronto. There are a lot more high-rise condominium towers clustered around the downtown core now, and where once you could see the Scotiabank Arena (formerly the Air Canada Arena) quite clearly, now it's mostly hidden by the new buildings.

There was, of course, an overpriced snack bar up there (there's a fancy restaurant in the evenings), and there was continual piped music, which was annoying its sheer presence, but also because the people that run the Tower would think it was necessary, especially given the ambient noise created by people talking. Having sated ourselves on the view, we moved down a stage to the area where there are glass panels in the floor. I was pleased, and proud, that Emma, Charlie, and DW, were happy to be joining me on the glass, three-hundred meters up. As I've aged, I have become far more aware of heights, and standing on the main observation deck I could feel the muscles in my legs tense, quite involuntarily, as I went to the windows. Intellectually I know that it's perfectly safe, but my body's built-in systems were telling me otherwise. Curiously, standing on the glass floor didn't faze me, nor everyone else, apparently.

Something else tweaked my old-age sensibilities, and I've noticed this in other places; cell phone cameras are king. Everywhere people were posing for pictures, and sometimes taking up quite large public spaces for long periods just to get that perfect shot. I'm always minded to walk through the space they've commandeered, but DW wouldn't be happy if I did it just to make a point.

As we went back down again, we were dumped into the inevitable gift shop and snack bar, and the place to pick up your "Commemorative Photo" that we'd been obliged to pose for as we were waiting in line to go up the Tower. I don't know why they still do this (see the moan about cell phone cameras above), or why people part with large sums of money for the printed product. But, it's all about milking the tourists.

CN Tower Giftshop Photo: Dreamstime.com

From the CN Tower, we went back to the hotel to drop off some stuff, then headed out to a vegan bakery at Queen West and Brock. We walked over to the streetcar stop at Spadina and Front West and waited on the little island in the middle of the traffic. Traffic is what Toronto is all about, but I'll come back to that in another blog. The streetcar duly arrived and we rattled along to Queen West, then changed to the 501 line that goes east-west along Queen Street. We had to wait a bit because we'd just missed one, and it was a wee bit nippy stood out in the traffic. There are little wind breaks on these streetcar platforms, but no seats, so it was a chilly twelve minutes stood waiting. The 501, at least on this part of its run, didn't have a dedicated running area, but shared the road with the traffic. Given that both sides of the road were lined with parked cars, it meant that the moving traffic was running on the tracks, so there was little speed advantage as the streetcar was stuck in traffic with the cars. That said, it has to be better than a diesel powered bus; much bigger, of course, and zero direct emissions. 

Spadina and Front West - Photo: Google StreetView

It was an interesting run out to the west, away from the downtown core. Queen Street was lined with hundreds of independent shops and eating places, so many of them reflecting the local racial makeup of the area. Tibetan and Nepalese seemed to be the dominant flavours, but there was a real mix. At Brock Avenue we descended from the streetcar and walked the few yards to the bakery, the "Vegan Danish Bakery on Queen". The sign above the door looked like the design from one of those tins of Danish biscuits you can buy at Christmas.

The bakery (right) and the streetcar tracks - Photo: Google StreetView

It is a bakery, but it's also a small restaurant, with the tiniest little booths in the long, narrow shop. The array of food on offer was wonderful and I had a Breakfast Sandwich, some very good coffee, and a cherry turnover pastry. I don't think it was particularly cheap, but the food was good, and all vegan of course. With the predominance of chain coffee shops these days, it's not always easy to find good European pastries, but these were good, very good. 

Our next stop of was Little Canada, a scaled down set of models of places in Canada located in a building at Young and Dundas, back in the downtown area. As ever, we just missed a streetcar and the wait for the next one was cold again. We went past Spadina this time and carried on to University, and Osgoode Subway station. We didn't need to use the subway really, but Charlie was keen so we jumped on the U-shaped line that took us down to Union again, then back up to Dundas, or rather Toronto Metropolitan University, better known as TMU. Little Canada is situated in the same building as the subway station, so it was up one set of escalators, and down another, to get there, all without having to go outside.

Photo: TTC.ca

What can I say about Little Canada? It's a series of highly detailed models of places in Canada, the first one being Niagara Falls. It's all built around HO scale railways, but it's not about the trains, it's about recreating all the buildings, in miniature, but to the same scale as a standard train layout. The trains all move, obviously, and there are road vehicles moving about, all lit I might add, and even the water features look real (indeed, the Bay of Fundy had been recreated with actual water, the tide going in and out - the tidal reach in the real Bay is one of its features). The lights in the models were great, and the ambient lighting changed every ten minutes or so from day time to night time. Other models included Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax NS, St John's NL, Vancouver BC and Victoria BC. There was a model of the Northern Territories in a special cold room, and they're working on a Prairie model now. It was fascinating, for adults and children alike. Me being me I was keen to look into one of the control rooms where all the lights, trains and road vehicles are managed from, and I was particularly taken with the little vehicle loop where road vehicles left the model, went round a loop and then paused to build a gap between their movements as they set out on the model again. We paid around $35 for an adult ticket and I reckon that was about the best value attraction we visited. 

Little Canada's Niagara Falls and Clifton Hill

Supper was in the subterranean food court at Union station again, before we joined the massed ranks of Blue Jays fans as they headed to the Rogers Centre for their game with the Cleveland Guardians, along the slightly grandly named Skywalk, from the station. The evening was spent doing last night stuff like packing, in readiness for our departure on Saturday, which was probably best given the masses of people milling around the hotel while the Blue Jays slumped to defeat. Ah, but they play again tomorrow.

Sad Blue Jays fans - Photo: Reuters and dailymail.co.uk