Homeward Bound

 

Monday started early, too early as it turned out because DW had thought check-out was at 10am, and we were really pushed to achieve that, but at 10:58 she discovered check-out was actually at 11am. It was time to relax.

Getting out of the underground parking garage was fun as the turns were very tight and very narrow, made harder when we met a car coming the other way. But we emerged out into the sunlight and started to make our way through the traffic of downtown Toronto. The traffic itself wasn’t too scary, but there are traffic lights literally every hundred metres, which makes Chatham look free flowing by comparison. We did make it to the Gardiner Expressway eventually, then headed not home, but to the Square One Mall in Mississauga. We were on a mission to visit the Vessi shoe store there, because, why not when you’re already up in the big city? But first there was the traffic.

Driving on any of the freeways in the GTA is not a pleasing experience. The volume of traffic is daunting, as is its speed in relation to the speed limit, and its alarming tendency to switch lanes, two or three at a time, and never to signal before, during, or after. The most annoying thing, though, is when the right lane, the driving lane, suddenly becomes a right-turn only lane. This happens very frequently and, counter to the instructions in the Ontario Drivers’ Manual, you end up driving in Lane 2, simply to avoid yet another lurch to the left in fast moving and very heavy traffic.

Once off the Gardiner, we had to negotiate Hurontario Street, normally a three-lane each way road with a central median, but now mile after mile of construction work, often closing two of the three lanes, to allow a light rail system to be installed in the aforementioned median. It was slow going indeed.

We did arrive at Square One eventually and parked in the shade of one the many high-rise apartment blocks in that area. The Mall itself is big, and on multiple levels, and quite beyond anything south west Ontario has to offer. The range of shops was interesting, too; Rolex, Armani, Columbia, and the rest. But it was to Vessi we made our way, for DW to spend a fair bit of time choosing and buying some new shoes, so at least the mission was accomplished. We made our way to one of the food areas and had some of Jimmy the Greek’s finest Souvlaki and Falafel meals, because it seems we like Mall food court catering.

When it came time to leave, I had a choice of routes home. No road out of Toronto is a good road, but I opted for the more scenic southerly route and realised that may not have been the best choice. A few miles into the run, I had the option of joining the 407 toll road but decided not to despite knowing that it would not be busy, and carried on down to the Queen Elizabeth Way, the QEW, then ground to an almost immediate halt. Heading west towards Hamilton the road, all four lanes, was crawling along, and as we started to move, it wasn’t at much of a speed. There were no road works or crashes, this was just Monday afternoon traffic. Luckily, I did spy a High Occupancy Vehicle Lane (HOV) off to the left, so forced my way over and joined the more freely moving traffic in it. To use the HOV lane you’re supposed to have two or more people in the car, but as we discovered, not everybody did. We were bowling along, faster than the main part of the road, when all of a sudden, the traffic in the HOV ground to a halt. I was a bit distracted and didn’t immediately hit the brakes, not expecting such a thing in HOV lane, but as I keep a good distance between me and the car in front, I was able to stop quite safely. The pickup truck behind, though, had to veer on to the left-side shoulder to avoid hitting me, which is when we saw that the driver was the only one in the vehicle, the naughty man. I worked out that each time we came to a gap in the HOV lane that allowed vehicles to leave or join it, those leaving were having a hard time slowing to match the speed of the traffic on the main lanes in order to merge. Once I worked that out, I was able to anticipate the slow down. We made it to Burlington and a less busy road, where I realised that the 407 I had decided not to use earlier joined the QEW right there. All that aggravation just to save a few dollars on the toll road? I have learned my lesson.

The rest of the run home was uneventful. We didn’t stop, and managed to upset the Satnav by driving much faster than it anticipated thanks to the increased speed limits on our local highways. I really should update that thing.

It had been a successful weekend, despite paying a king’s ransom for the hotel room, and a ton on other stuff in the big, expensive city. The hotel room was disappointing given the cost, but I think most hotel rooms in Toronto are disappointing given the scandalous charges they levy. The transit system looked after us well, and the show on Sunday night was great. Toronto isn’t a city filled with history, great parks, culture, or sights, but it is a good place to visit once in a while, provided that your savings will stand it. We’ll be back, but maybe not for a while yet.

Katty and The Mooch

For the first time on this trip, the rain was pattering on the windows this morning. Dark clouds scudded across the eastern Toronto skyline and I thought, “Bugger, we're supposed to be going out this morning".

By the time we'd reached street level, though, the rain had stopped and blue skies were apparent, which was what was forecast. This now fine day we were heading to St Lawrence Market, over in “Old Toronto", actually just a ten-minute walk from Bay Street. On Sundays there is a secondary St Lawrence market that sells what we thought would be antiques and the like, but turned out to be largely clothing. There were a couple of stalls with stuff you might see in flea markets on their tables, but not many. Given that there was a DJ pumping out “tunes" at one end of the hall thing the market was enclosed in, we didn't stay long. Personally I will always avoid loud music when trying to browse or shop, but then I'm just old and crotchety. DW did purchase some vegan comestibles at a stall just outside, but then we moved to the market proper, a place we had visited when we were last in Toronto.

St Lawrence Market is two floors of an old building, purpose built I'd guess, that houses stalls selling food, some prepared and cooked, some not. It was heaving in there, but we browsed and came away with two hot sausage rolls for my lunch, to compliment the things that DW had bought.  A couple of the stalls had long lines around them, clearly the popular places to eat, but I'm long past the point where I'll queue for food like that when there are alternatives.

We sat outside at a picnic table to eat lunch and watched the sparrows at work. DW's lunch wasn't good apparently, and my sausage rolls were not quite what I had expected, so it was a solid three out of ten for our meals.

We'd left the “Do Not Disturb" sign off the hotel room door, to give the housekeepers a chance to clean, so we didn't rush back. We walked down to the lake front and then westward past the Redpath sugar refinery, surely the last industrial site in Toronto that remains right on Lake Ontario. We investigated a supermarket we'd not heard of, Farm Boy, and bought a few bits and pieces, all vegan, and while the prices were not cheap, we deemed the place “good".

We then set off back to Union Station to pick up a Subway train, but glimpsing the Old City Hall at the end of Bay Street, we opted to walk to the hotel. Walking the streets of any big city can be hard on your legs and your feet, but the effort was worth it as we took in the old and the new skyscrapers that line Bay Street.

When we arrived back at the hotel, the room had indeed been serviced, so we settled down and rested, in preparation for the main even of the weekend, our visit to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and “The Rest is Politics US" live show, with Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci. DW had bought a nice big vegan lasagna from the Danish Bakery, so that went in the microwave, and turned to be a really nice early supper, lining our stomachs in preparation for the main event.

We set off for the theatre at about six-thirty, heading to the Subway first, then to the streetcar out to Exhibition Loop and Toronto's events area. I think the place used to be known as the Canadian National Exhibition, CNE, but the CN seems to have been dropped. It's a large area with concert and events halls, an open-air arena, theatre, and the football stadium that's home to Toronto FC. It used to be served only by the GO Train and road access, but the streetcar line has a loop station there now, which is very convenient for us public transit types. The only trouble, though, was that we boarded the wrong streetcar at Union Station on our way there.

The streetcar station is underground at Union, and right next to the subway station. As we made our way to it, there was a streetcar already in the station, and I was convinced that the indicator board that hung from the ceiling said it was the 509 to Exhibition. Unfortunately, it wasn't, it was the 510, and I only realised when it lurched to the right at Queen's Quay and made its way north up Spadina Avenue. When you're actually in the streetcar, there's no indication which service you're travelling on, just the next stop. If you don’t know the stop names, then that’s not much use. After a couple of minutes confusion, and asking someone, we confirmed the error and hurriedly alighted, catching the next 510 service going south back to Queen's Quay. There we alighted again and walked over to the station just past Spadina and waited for the 509. This time, as we could see the front of the streetcar, we knew it was the 509 going to Exhibition. I think Toronto's transit authority, the TTC, could do with some indication inside the streetcar as to the service number, just to help out-of-town rubes like us.

As we walked from the streetcar station, we were joined by a couple of women also heading to see “Katty and The Mooch”, and I was happy to guide them as they weren’t sure of their map. Me being me, I had already scoped out the walk on Google Maps, and I’ve been to the Exhibition area a couple of times. It was good to see the football stadium all lit up; the grass was being zapped with artificial sunshine, water, and a bit of pretend wind, because that’s how good playing surfaces are achieved these days.

The show was excellent, two hours of good political comment, a few jokes, and an audience so anti-Trump and pro-Canada that it made me smile. I’m not a rabid nationalist for Canada, but I understand solidarity with the home country well enough.

The ride back to the hotel was easy enough, the transit systems run well into the night, thankfully. It was surprising just how quickly the Subway platform filled up, though, while we were waiting at Union; it was quite like the rush hour, albeit nearly eleven at night.

DW was hankering for some greasy fries, but all the food places were closing as we walked back to the hotel, so we had to make do with (more) peanuts. They went well with the wine we felt duty-bound to finish.

Tomorrow is leaving day, so we stayed up late and packed our bags, hoping to get away at a reasonable hour. Monday, then, is another day.

Casa Loma, and other stuff.

 

Day two of our road trip, and today's plan was to visit Casa Loma, a grand Edwardian pile on a hill overlooking Toronto. But first the dishwasher needed to be sorted out.

DW called maintenance again, and this time a little fellow (I can say that because he was quite little) turned up with a bag of tools. He pronounced the issue to be with the breaker (fuse), but took quite a while to find the one he needed. He did, though, and DW set the now working thing whirring before we set off for Casa Loma.

We jumped on a Subway train heading north on Line One, and alighted at a station called Dupont, at the bottom of the aforementioned hill. Before we tackled the hill, though, we diverted to Tim Horton's for breakfast, something Timmies is quite good for when you're on a mission. Casa Loma is visible from the streets below, and looked especially nice against the deep blue autumnal sky.

We conquered the hill and while regaining our breath, studied the front of the mansion. It was built between 1911 and 1Bla, so isn't ancient. Rather than bore you with my descriptions, here's a link to Wikipedia, which gives more relevant information than the place's own commercial website; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Loma

It's forty dollars for us oldies to get in, which is a bit steep in my view, but you can spend quite a while there because it's quite extensive. The house is now owned by a “Leisure" company, which may explain the high entrance fee, but there were no shortage of takers. We stood behind a group of four teenagers while waiting to buy our tickets, and they each bought their own tickets, one by one, which involved a card transaction and some printing of paper. I might have bought all four in one go and taken the money from the others, but this one-by-one thing is quite the norm here, and not just with youngsters. It's a nightmare to be stood behind a line of office workers in Timmies, obviously there as a group, and all buy their one coffee each. What happened to buying rounds?

Back to Casa Loma, the Pellatt family had to give the place up in 1924 for financial reasons, and all of the valuable furniture and paintings were sold, which is why there are large areas inside that are almost devoid of furniture, and that furniture which was on display isn't really from Pellatt's original collection, although some is. Because the house is Edwardian, it doesn't look old in the sense that some National Trust places can look in the UK, and because the house has been restored a few times over, things do look quite fresh. That is apart from any silver ware on display, that all needed a good polish, and anywhere close to the floor, which needed a good clean.

We were given a map, and there is an online information thing you can get on your phone that gave details of the building and the Pellatt family. It could have done with a bit of structure there, though, perhaps a suggested route through the house. The rooms were grand, though, with plenty of items from the Pellatt family on display. There was also a whole floor dedicated to the Queen's Own Canadian Rifles, the Pellatt regiment, and that was very interesting. There was a short video about the house's role in the Second World War in housing Station “M", essentially a manufactory of items for spies and résistance movements in Europe.

I did get to go up in the roof, and inside the two towers, one at each end of the house. It was an odd experience, too, because the house hosts various related activities, including an Escape Room experience, and for October, a “House of Horrors" thing, so the roof spaces and towers were festooned with spooky stuff. The Norman Tower was open at the top and afforded great views Toronto, especially in the fine weather. Sadly there was a group of three young women monopolizing part of the open area, posing for photos of each other and making a big fuss about it. Don't mind me, I'm just old.

We wanted to see the vintage cars in the Stables, and the access to that building was through a long tunnel. The tunnel was dimly lit and decked out with plastic chains, corpses and other “horror" paraphernalia, which was quite effective in the half-light, but it did make the walk seem very long. I didn't have any idea where the stable block was located in relation to the house, but looking at the map later, it was in an entirely different street!

The stables were also decked out with spooky stuff, plastic corpses laid out where once horses stood, and an old carriage made to look like a Hallowe'en hearse. It still smelled faintly of horses, though.

Then it was up into the roof to see an array of waxworks depicting various Hollywood stars, all of whom had been to Casa Loma on film location. There are a surprising number of movies shot, at least in part, in the House on the Hill.

We'd had enough by then, and made our way back along the tunnel, and out to the fresh air. It was lunch time, anyway.

Walking back down the hill, we found our way to Dupont station again, and took the southbound train to St Andrew, in the Downtown core. From there, after dithering about making sure we were on the right side of the street, which is hard to do when you’re in a skyscraper canyon (I had to resort to using the compass on my phone), we boarded a very busy streetcar and headed west towards the Danish Bakery again. I'd opted to use the King Street route rather than Queen Street, to avoid the need to use a bus where the road was dug up. It was actually a very pleasant walk from King to Queen Street, and another vegan lunchtime treat was enjoyed.

When we'd finished and were back on King Street, we boarded the first streetcar that came along and it turned out to be one of the diverted ones from Queen Street, so that was a bonus. Back in the Downtown Core, it was just a short walk to the hotel without using the Subway.

Back at base, and with 11,000 steps under our belts, we both crashed out for an hour or so. That might have been it for the night, except for Nuit Blanche, that twelve hour art extravaganza taking place across Toronto, starting at 7pm.

At just before 8pm, we shuffled into an amazingly packed Nathan Phillips Square, just in time to see the Marching Band that was due every hour, on the hour, for a ten minute parade. It was good, but would have been better had we been able to see anything. Most of the art installations, good though they were, were so thronged with people that we didn't see much at all. We eventually walked over to Bay Street, then through the Eaton Centre to Younge Street, and back around Dundas Street to the hotel, but not before stopping off at a Shoppers Drug Mart store to get something for breakfast. Toronto is a city that tends to shut down at 9pm, even at the weekend, so it was good to see so many people out thanks to Nuit Blanche.

So that was our day. We did stay up to see something on the TV about the Lockerbie air disaster, which is not a good thing to see when you've a transatlantic flight in the offing. Ah well. Tomorrow is Podcast day, but that's not until the evening. The day, I think, will be in Old Toronto and St Lawrence Market, but who knows?

We're back on the road

After a stationary summer, we're back on the road. We're in the big city, Canada's most populous city, Toronto, for a long weekend. There is a purpose to our travels, namely to see international jet-setting podcasters Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci, from "The Rest is Politics US". DW is a big fan, and I have to say is quite excited at being able to see them in the flesh, as it were.

We booked three nights in the DoubleTree in Downtown Toronto, in Chestnut Street, despite the eye-watering price, so that we could explore the metropolis a little, as well as get to see the DW's friends. But first we had to get there/here.

It's always a pain slogging up Highway 401, Canada's busiest road. The speed limit has been nominally raised from 100kph to 110kph, but that makes precious little difference when most people drive at 130kph or more. Speed limits are mere suggestions in this part of the world, and most especially when you enter the realms of the Greater Toronto Area, appropriately shortened by all and sundry to GTA.

It was plain sailing up to London (Ontario), where first the highway was down to a single lane at Colonel Talbot Road for the removal of a bridge, and second, down to two lanes (from four) for some widening around Highbury Avenue. In between these two bottlenecks, the increasingly busy Highway 402 from Sarnia joins Highway 401 so the traffic denisty is instantly doubled. From London to Guelph, the two right-most lanes of the highway were just two lines of fast moving eighteen-wheelers, leaving everyone else crammed into the third lane, dicing with death by tailgaiting at 130kph and more. 

In my head I had the route mapped out; Highway 402, Highway 403 from Woodstock, the Queen Elizabeth Way from Burlington and finally the Gardiner Express Way into the downtown core of Toronto. Unfortunately, the lady in the satellite warned us of severe delays om Highway 403, so we opted for the alternative route she suggested, to stay on Highway 401. That option least allowed us the added service centre at Cambridge, perfect for a pit stop, and a better road, even if it was marginally further to travel. The disadvantage was that Highway 401 is an absolute nightmare as it enters the GTA thanks to the volume of traffic.

As always in very heavy traffic, there were sudden slowdowns, followed by sudden speed increases. The lady in the satellite told us we were heading for "401 Collectors", which would have been fine if she'd mentioned which Collectors, or at least the eventual intersection number after the Collectors. For the uninitiated, the Highway gets split into two running channels in Toronto, on the left are four or five Express Lanes, and on the right are four or five collector lanes, where vehicles leave or join the highway. The Express lanes and the Collectors run parallel, but go for many kilometres separated by an uncrossable median. Therefore, you need to know which exit you're heading for so that you can judge where you can leave the Express Lanes and join the Collectors. With the paucity of information from the lady in the satellite, I naturally missed the point at which I should have joined the collectors and was marooned in the Express Lanes. To add to the confusion, the leftmost lane was reserved for High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV), that is a vehicle with two or more people in it, that can often avoid slow or stopped traffic. I was a bit wary about using it, not least because it was four or five lanes away from the Collectors, but in theory you're only supposed to leave the HOV lane at specific points. Anyway, people drive even faster in the HOV lane than they do in the regular lanes, and I don't like getting chivvied into approaching 150kph.

The lady in the satellite gave us a revised route, the 427 southbound, so at least I knew when to dive off the Express lanes and onto the Collectors. The 427 is the airport road, so I did know where I needed to leave the Express lanes, and despite an appalling lack of signage, I did find the correct exit and started a run south towards the Gardiner Expressway. Did you know that until quite recently, the first sign for the Airport didn't appear on the 401 until the airport itself was in view? A couple of new airport signs have gone up, but the furthest one away is still less than 5Km before the exit from the 401. Signage here is poor, and I'm being kind in my choice of words.

Another annoying feature of the roads around Toronto is the tendency for the right lane, the driving lane, to magically turn into an exit lane. That caught me a couple of times today, although I suppose if I travelled these roads regularly, I'd get used to them.

On the Gardiner it was scarily busy, but the views of downtown Toronto, and Lake Ontario (note the name) were spectacular. We were aiming to drop in at the Vegan Danish Bakery before getting to the hotel, so we exited the Gardiner at Jamieson Avenue and joined the Parkdale traffic, just at school kicking out time. Fortunately we didn't have far to go.

Turning onto Queen Street West, it was only a block or two until we reached the parking lot that we'd scoped out ahead of time. There were plenty of spaces, and no wonder, when I found it that it cost $10 for two hours, which was a bit steep for this part of town.

Then it was just a short walk to the bakery, along the busy sidewalks, something you don't see in Chatham very often. Queen Street is one of the busy east-west-east routes that run parallel to the lake. It has four running lanes, two each way, but the two curbside lanes are mostly filled with (legally) parked cars, and the two centre lanes are shared with the streetcar tracks. Today, there was a distinct lack of streetcars, but more of that later.

The bakery, somewhere that we have visited before, was open and ready to serve us up some lovely grub. It's not cheap, nowhere is in Toronto, but the food is good. After a hot snack, we left with some exciting pastries, which we intended to enjoy later.

Back in the car, we turned eastwards on Queen Street and headed downtown. The reason there were no streetcars was that the road was all dug up at one point, blocking the tracks. There were buses replacing the trams as far as Shaw Street, and we plodded along behind one. The bus turned off at Shaw Street, and was immediately replaced by a streetcar, so we carried on behind it towards our goal. At one point I decided to lurch off to the right in an attempt to get to Dundas Street before the lady in the satellite said I should, but messed up completely and ended up back on Queen Street, behind a streetcar of course.

It was very slow going for the rest of the route, stymied by road works and people doing daft things, but we arrived at the hotel eventually. I dropped DW at the lobby, and took the car down into the bowels of the earth beneath the hotel to park. As with all these underground parking garages, it was all tight turns and ramps. When I did find a space, I had to back into it, with someone sat right on my tail of course, but no dings were collected and I parked safely. I was on level three, but it went down three more levels, as I discovered when I found the elevators. Given the slowness of trying to drive anywhere in this city, and the fact that I had a good parking spot, I decided that the car was staying where it was for the duration of our stay.

DW had checked us in and we made our way to the twenty-sixth floor (I didn't realise the hotel had that many floors) but when I looked out of the room's widow I realised just how high up we were.

The room, while quite big, is a bit tired. We find ourselves saying the same thing about most of the hotels we've stayed at in the GTA. The bathroom is tiny and, horror of horrors, doesn't have a walk in shower, contrary to the hotel's website description and photograph. A walk-in shower was at the top of DW's requirement list, so she was right onto the ‘phone and trying to get something sorted out. Sadly, there was no chance of a room move, not today anyway, but as recompense the hotel offered us two days' free breakfasts. Not a great offer as the hotel doesn't offer vegan food, so they amended the offer to two days free parking, worth ninety dollars, so that was alright. As DW said, it pays to complain. Me, I'm not the complaining type, but I'm glad that she is.

When we'd settled, we went out for a stroll around. We really are in the downtown core, yards from Nathan Phillips Square and the Toronto's City Hall. It's next to Bay Street, Canada's financial centre, and not too many yards from the mega-mall that is the Eaton Centre. There's a bit outdoor art event in Nathan Phillips Square tomorrow, so there were roads closed and barriers everywhere, but we were able to wander around as the evening darkened. We picked up some dishwasher soap in the mall, another exiting tale to tell, and were witness to the sad sight of the unhoused moving into Nathan Phillips Square to make use of the benches under the concrete walkway. It's a bit of an irony that they have to gather in the shadow of City Hall, but homelessness is a growing stain on not just Toronto, but most towns and cities in the industrialised world. It's doubly painful when you see just how much more wealthy the already wealthy have become. Social comment there, but it needs saying.

Back at the 26^th floor, I tried connecting my Android tablet to the TV to watch a movie, but despite instructions for the TV that said it was possible, the software was locked down so I couldn't access the input source choices. Then I tried signing into Netflix on the TV itself, and kept getting all manner of errors, that was until I disconnected my phone, the sign in medium, from the hotel's Wi-Fi, and then I was able to sign in.

We watched a movie, drank wine and beer, and eat pastries and peanuts. At eleven o'clock, DW decided to run a few plates through the dishwasher (we have a dishwasher!) only to find that the thing was completely dead. She called Maintenance and they said they'd send someone up, but an hour later, no one had shown up. Another call downstairs and we were told the maintenance team signed off at eleven, which you might have thought they'd have said earlier.

Then it was bedtime, in a surprisingly noisy room given how far above the street we are. Still, my Loop ear plugs were deployed and I took the customary thirty seconds to fall asleep. What will Saturday bring, I wonder? Hopefully a working dishwasher.

 

Springtime in Toronto - Day Four

 

Photo: Marriott.com.cn

We didn't have to check out of the hotel until noon, but were were ready to roll at about 9am, in anticipation of the young 'uns coming up early. It was a good plan, except that they didn't show, and were both still in bed at 9am. We dawdled about and they eventually turned up at about 1030hrs. It was pouring with rain, too, so they were instructed not to go to Tim's for breakfast.

It was busy in the hotel's lobby, lots of people were checking out, but there were also a lot of people in for the Blue Jays' afternoon game at 3pm. We ordered the car, and waited.

We'd decided to drop Emma and Charlie off at Exhibition GO Transit station so that Charlie could get a last ride on the train before we went home. They were to catch the train to Aldershot, which is right beside Highway 403 and our route home, and I knew that there was a pickup area there where we could meet them. That was all fine in theory, but for a couple of slight issues. 

The Gardiner, closed. Photo: ctvnews.ca

Firstly, the Gardiner Expressway, the highway on stilts through the downtown core, was closed for the weekend. That much I knew, but what I didn't know was that the Exhibition Centre was hosting a massive volleyball tournament for school-age children and everywhere around the Centre was gridlocked. The road to the station was closed off, and it took us an age to creep around the exhibition halls to get close enough to drop them off for the station. Every one of the Centre's parking lots was full, and with the Gardiner closed, Lakeshore Boulevard was at a standstill.

We did drop them off, although not as close to the station as we'd have liked. They missed the train they were going for, but that worked for us because it took us for ever to break free of the traffic jams caused by the Gardiner and the volleyball. Indeed, our Satnav routed us on to Queens Street West, where we'd been the day before, and we crawled slowly westwards with the trams until we got to the part where the Gardiner wasn't closed, and then onto the QEW. The QEW was slow, but we made use of the HOV lane again, and arrived at Aldershot about twenty minutes before the kids. I have to say that I'm never a comfortable user of the HOV lanes in Toronto. People drive far too fast at the best of times, and given a "go faster" lane, the speed merchants want to go even faster, this despite the 100kph limit. I'm OK driving at speed, just not all that happy about being bullied into collecting a speeding ticket. We were OK this wet Saturday because the speed was generally around 110-120kph, not fast enough to catch the attention of the cops, but on other days, 130kph seems to be the minimum in the HOV lane, and I'm not collecting a fine and demerit points because the knob ends in Toronto think the roads are race tracks.

Photo: Google Maps and urbantoronto.ca

When they did arrive at Aldershot, we hit the 403 again and made for the rest area just outside Brantford, to fill up on our last junk food of the trip. I had a Tim Hortons Turkey Bacon Club Sandwich, which I think was missing the bacon (I'd finished it before I noticed). It didn't matter because it was nice as it was, and just right for brunch.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful, thankfully, and free of the rain that plagued Toronto. Travelling west on the 401 on a Saturday was pretty easy, the truck traffic was light and there were not too many people hoping to collect Stunt Driving charges, as there often is during the week. Charlie was pretty good until we insisted on a pee stop at Dutton, and he didn't want to go, but other than that he'd been in excellent fettle for the entire trip.

Back home it was unpacking time, a horrible chore, but it has to be done. I put off firing up the washing machine, because laundry can always wait for another day.

The trip, then, was quite successful. Emma saw Dave. Charlie travelled the TTC and GO, and we grown-ups were able to see Toronto's harbourfront for the first time. I was a bit shocked as to how much everything costs in the big city, and while it wasn't that we didn't have the money, I did resent shelling out such vast sums of cash for stuff that was never going to be value for money.

I was reminded on the trip that Toronto is just a massive collection of cars and roads, with traffic lights at every corner of every block, and a long wait before it's safe for pedestrians to cross the road. With the Presto Card, fares of the TTC and Go Transit were quite reasonable, but those transit systems are quite limited, as we found out trying to get to Old Toronto. Walking's OK but the street crossings, the noise, and the pollution make it less than attractive. I suppose we could have used taxis, there were plenty about, but that would have been yet another layer of cost.

The hotel was OK, it's location was excellent, but the cost not so good. I know I sound like a grumpy old man, but when the cost of a weekend in Toronto far outstrips what you'd pay in New York (and yes, we could drive there), it kind of takes the gloss off things.

Anyway, that's us done with travelling for a while, at least until this oil crisis thing is sorted. Until then, it's back to gardening, assuming that the rain lets up.

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

Springtime in Toronto - Day Two

 A good night's sleep was had, to be sure, the blinds on the huge windows in this hotel room are quite effective. DW was up and about before me, which is unusual, but I realised why when Emma and Charlie arrived in our room at about eight-thirty, which was obviously far too early.

We despatched the young 'uns to Tim Hortons to get some breakfast while I set to with my ablutions, but they were back quickly, Charlie desperate to get to the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant. That it wasn't open until lunch time made no difference. The thing was that Charlie had seen a video of one of his YouTube people, Catie Claessens, filming a piece from within the restaurant, and he was very keen to go as a result. Catie isn't an "influencer", but an actor who does educational videos for pre-schoolers, and she's quite talented; Charlie likes her.

The Museum of Illusions was also on the list of things to do, and as we were so early we decided to go there first. Both the Spaghetti place, and the museum, were in a part of town known Old Toronto, and its so old that it's devoid of streetcar and subway lines. We could have walked the whole way, it wasn't too far, but we opted to go down to the lake first, then jump on a streetcar for a short run to Union Station, before walking the last few blocks. The lake was nice, and we watched an aircraft land at Billy Bishop airport, about which I was far more excited than anyone else.

The streetcar ride was short, but fun as it dipped below street level and took some seriously sharp turns to get to Union. Union station is Toronto's main transit hub and is built on many levels. Up stairs, down stairs, through barriers and under signs, I guess it's OK if you know where you're going, but very confusing when you don't. DW went to go through a barrier only to find that it wasn't a barrier at all, just a fixed panel, such was the confusion. But we emerged into the busy-ness that is Front Street, eventually, and were rewarded with a great view of the imposing station building.

We set of on foot towards the museum, amid Toronto's choking traffic. Like most North American cities, Toronto is arranged on a grid, so at every block there were traffic lights and a wait to cross the street, and the traffic was just never ending. Most of my city experience recently has been in London, and while it's busy there, you don't seem to be constantly crossing major thoroughfares all the time. Mind you, Toronto doesn't have a congestion charge, and public transit is basic in comparison to London, so that may be a park of the issue. There are parking garages everywhere, too, so vehicular traffic is positively encouraged, which seems a bit behind the curve in these energy conscious days. Nothing is going to change soon, though, because the current Provincial administration is wedded to private car use above all else.

We dropped the kids at the museum and made our way across the road to St Lawrence Market, a huge brick-built edifice that houses an indoor market. We hadn't even arrived at the front door when Emma called to say that the museum couldn't offer them a ticket until 1140, so she and Charlie joined us in our exploration of the market.

What can you say about St Lawrence Market? It's full of vendors selling (mostly) food, some prepared and ready to eat, some not, and representing just about every country's cuisine you could think of. It smelled divine, too, which had me salivating from the minute we entered. The kids settled on some fresh fruit and veggie juice, and we sat in the basement area soaking up the atmosphere, watching the world moving around us. If you ever doubted that Toronto is a multi-cultural city, St Lawrence Market will put you right. When the kids went off to the museum, DW and I toured around. We might have bought lunch there, the choice was mind-boggling, but the Old Spaghetti Factory beckoned.

Picture: Google StreetView 2023

The restaurant was a short walk from the market and we arrived a little after noon. This restaurant is stuffed full of stained glass, fairground parafernalia, posters for improbable circus acts, and the like. It's a big place, but we were shepherded to the rear of the place and seated with all the other patrons, and next to a noisy group. I understand why restaurants do that, but it's frustrating to be shoe-horned into one corner when you're facing a sea of empty tables. We did ascertain from watching Catie's video on DW's phone that Charlie was sat in the exact seat that Catie had occupied, so he was mightily chuffed about that.

The food was OK, not exceptional, and in my opinion was too expensive. That said, downtown Toronto prices for anything are through the roof, so maybe it wasn't so bad given the location. The service was very good, so good in fact that the server knew instantly that the pasta noodles in the restaurant, their staple dish, were not suitable for vegan, which kind of put a damper on things. The gluten-free pasta was the substitute, but in these days of better food understanding, restaurant franchises like this surely should work to make their basic dish appealing to a wider audience; it's not hard to leave the egg out of pasta, after all. You'll guess that I was a wee bit underwhelmed by the Old Spaghetti Factory, but at least Charlie enjoyed it.

Picture: Google StreetView 2021

Then we made our way slowly back to the hotel, by way of Union Station and the Streetcars. In the middle of the day the streetcar service is a little sparse and we ended up waiting on a busy platform for the best part of twenty minutes, which wasn't great considering we could have used either of the two lines that platform served. That is a great failing of Toronto's transit in that it's built for commuters and pays little heed to people moving around during the day who haven't driven into the city. Walking back up from the harbour area, you have to go under the Gardiner Expressway, which is a multiple lane highway running high above the ground on crumbling concrete supports. There's a busy road beneath it, too, so it's noisy and smelly under there and a pain in the bum crossing the area. 

Back at the hotel, we crashed out for an hour or so, then did our grandparent duty by looking after Charlie while Emma prepped for her Dave concert later in the evening. I should point out that I have no idea who Dave is, except that he's an English rapper and very popular with young people.

Picture: Google StreetView 2012

We all accompanied Emma on the streetcar out to Exhibition Place and the concert venue. The tram was busy with other young types heading to the concert, thus proving my point about Dave being popular. I was pleased that we went on the streetcar, we could have taken the GO train, but I quite enjoyed it rattling along up to Exhibition Loop. There were many, many, more young types outside the venue, quite a few dressed in football shirts, Dave himself being a bit of a footy fan. While were there we saw the ongoing expansion work at the BMO Field, home of Toronto FC, and host to a game or two in the upcoming World Cup. I have to say that some of the high-rise seating looked more than a little rickety, so it's just as well that I decided to boycott all FIFA events this year, not that I could have afforded a ticket anyway

Having safely dropped Emma off, DW, Charlie, and I made our way to the GO station for a short ride on the GO Transit system. Exhibition Station is being rebuilt and there was a distinct lack of signage or information screens, but we found our way to the correct platform and a train heading west. Even at 1930hrs, it was busy on the train with people heading home from work, but we found a seat and Charlie sat mesmerised as the train slid out of the station. We were only going to Mimico, the next stop, but managed to get into conversation with a young woman who was heading home from work, which was nice. In London, it would have been stony silence.

Photo credit: Unknown

At Mimico, we alighted from the train, went to the station proper so Charlie could have a toilet break, and I fell into conversation with a GO employee who was telling us that it might be crazy in Toronto because the Raptors (Basketball) were playing at home. The conversation quickly moved onto the BMO Field, FIFA, and the man's dislike of all things related to the World Cup. He was of Greek extraction (he offered that information, I didn't ask), so knew a bit about footy, but his Greek volubility certainly came to the fore and I had a job getting away from him. 

We were going to head back into Union Station on the next eastbound train, and didn't have to wait too long for it to arrive, despite the fact that the GO app was showing the train as running 20 minutes late. Of course this train wasn't busy at all, so we sat upstairs on the top deck and watched Toronto approach as we moved smoothly eastwards. I thought the service was going to terminate at Union, but no, it was going on to Oshawa under the guise of the Lakeshore East line. I only mention that because there was a stack of people waiting to get on when we arrived at the station and I could work out why.

Photo: Toronto.com

At Union, at 2030hrs, it was still really busy, and as we made our way to the food court for a snack, we were dodging lots of fast moving people. Half of the food court's outlets were closed, but there was still a crush down there, especially around the old standards, Tim Hortons and McDonalds. A grease-burger and stick fries later, we were walking the "Skywalk" back to the hotel. The name Skywalk is a wee bit grand, as all it is is a (mostly) covered walkway from the Station to the CN Tower. Not that we weren't grateful of course, as it had escalators to gain height, and no roads to cross.

Back in the hotel, DW prepped Charlie for bed and had him lie first on the big couch in our room, then on the bed. He did eventually crash out and slept without a pause for the next couple of hours. Meanwhile, I was called into action, to drive over to the concert venue to pick Emma up. It wasn't very late, maybe 2230hrs, which I was grateful for. DW called down to the front desk to have someone bring our car around, and ten minutes later I was launching myself into some seriously stupid downtown traffic, given the late hour. It was mayhem around the concert venue of course, but apart from a little misunderstanding about the rendezvous point, the Dave-struck child was in the car and we were heading back to the hotel. Quite what so many people were doing driving at 2300hrs in Toronto on a Thursday evening I shall never know.

Photo: Driving.ca

Charlie was roused, carried back to his room by his tired but happy mother, and we were finally left to turn in ourselves. A long day, for sure, but everything we planned came to pass, even if it wasn't in the original order. Oh, and I had 18,500 steps on my fitness app. Can't be bad.

Springtime in Toronto - Day One

 Day one is chaos.

We have a three night, four day run up to Toronto, built around the one young woman's desire to see someone called Dave, in concert. We didn't need to do three nights, but while we're up there, we thought we'd make a trip of it, young grandson and all. We're almost ready to go, and the little one is beyond excited, his mother is stressing out, and DW has a cold to end all colds, hence the chaos.

To add insult to injury, I've just realised that the hotel, the Town Centre Marriot, is costing us $850 a night after sales and room taxes, but not the $50 a day parking. It had better be damned good hotel!

Indeed, we've been looking around at things to do and places to eat and have come to the conclusion that Toronto is not a cheap destination. If you're hankering for steak and eggs for breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, it'll set you back $40, and that's before tax and the usual, almost mandatory tip. Even an out-of-hotel restaurant wants around $30 for breakfast, which is double what we'd pay at a restaurant at home. Four of us to visit Casa Loma, a kind of stately home in downtown Toronto, is just short of $200, as is a trip the aquarium. I think we can get three of us up the CN tower for $120, but only if we go late in the day. I have no idea why Toronto needs to be so expensive, but it outstrips New York for expensiveness, and by quite some margin. It's not that we can't afford it, but it feels like a rip-off. Still, we're committed.

The journey starts in about thirty minutes, so I will pick this up when we're safely ensconced in the hotel, but I needed to get that off my chest first.

As promised, here we are, in the Marriot City Centre, Toronto. It's a modern hotel glued onto the back of the Rogers Centre, the home of the Toronto Blue Jays (Major League Baseball). Some of the rooms here have windows that look into the stadium, but those were not only sold out, but were considerably more expensive, so we're looking north, over the railway line just outside Union Station. If you like Go (commuter) trains, or UP (Airport) trains, it's brilliant.

The run up here was OK, surprisingly not too scary with the traffic. We stopped at the halfway mark at Woodstock OnRoute service centre and bought "New York Fries", just chips, but quite nice all the same. I had a rare success with Starbucks where there was no line, coffee was ordered and delivered in about thirty seconds, and with a big smile. Why can't they all be like that?

The rest of the trip into the big city was as expected. Very busy on Highway 403, then along the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), past Burlington, Missausuga, and the rest, right up to the Gardiner Expressway. The QEW had a High Occupancy Lane (HOV) so were were able to skim past the slow moving traffic in the regular lanes. The Gardiner doesn't have the HOV lane, but it was moving, and moving really right up until we left the main road and made a left onto Spadina. That was a bit sticky, but it was only a short drive up the hill to the hotel, so no real issue.

At the hotel we were met with some assistance, a nice man who whisked the car away to be parked somewhere, where I do not know. It was busy in the hotel lobby with lots of business types in suits, but the check-in went easily, although not quite with the grace of the check-in clerk at London Heathrow's Sofitel early this year.

We had two rooms, and were offered an apology that they couldn't get them closer together; Emma and Charlie were on the third floor, we were on the fourth. The elevators are operated by means of your room key and will only give access to the floor that your room's on, so being split across two floors meant that we had to exchange spare keys. 

Emma's room is standard downtown style, smallish but comfortable. Ours, albeit at the end of a very long corridor, was deemed a "Suite", because it has a sitting room. Our windows go from floor to ceiling and face west, but thankfully are equipped with electrically operated blinds, shielding us this afternoon from the setting sun.

It's an OK room, clean and perhaps a little tired, but it is comfortable. It's not worth $850 a night, but we are right in the centre of downtown Toronto, so I guess we're paying for location as much as anything. We have a couple of bottles of Spring Water, free and for nothing, but there are two bigger bottles that they want us to part with $3 should we consume one. That strikes me a quite chintzy given the cost of the room. 

Having settled, briefly, we made our way out into the downtown core to get some food. We have used a little pizza place just down the street when in the big city, and we used it again today. $15 for a small pizza isn't too bad given the location, which I guess is why we use it. The young 'uns went back to the hotel afterwards, while DW and I wandered down to the harbourfront and soaked up a few late afternoon rays as we walked the boardwalk and admired the tranquil lake. We've been to Toronto a few times, and that is the first time I have been down to the waterfront, and it was well worth the effort today.

Charlie was in bed in good time tonight, so DW and I have a peaceful evening ahead. She's still feeling very rough, so that's a good thing. We have the day mapped out tomorrow, so lets hope that the weather holds and the missus starts feeling a bit better.

Blighty Bound - A Conclusion

To conclude the blog posts for our England trip, I thought I'd just do a little summary.

We allowed far too much time for our drive up the 401 to the airport, although I wouldn't be saying that if we'd been significantly held up. 

We experienced the magic of the Valet service at Park N Fly again, so good and yet relatively well priced, at least in comparison to parking at a UK airport.

Flying from Toronto to London and back with British Airways was pretty good. Flights were on time, seats were good, as were the cabin crew. The return flight upgrade was a nice bonus, I guess that's what can happen on a Saturday during the day when the expensive seats are not in demand by businesses. BA continues to be very competitive on price, and they fly in to Heathrow's Terminal 5, the best of the bunch by a long way, if any airport terminal can be considered the best of anything. Terminal 5 is also the home of SIXT car rental, the only reasonably priced car hire company at the airport that doesn't require you to clamber aboard a minibus to get to their lot. 

This is the third time we've used SIXT, and they were as good as ever. They did a brilliant upsell job on us, doubling the cost of the rental, but the car was very nice. The people that work there are second to none, personable and attentive and worth the money in my view.

Returning the car to SIXT was also a breeze, and given that it was at the Heathrow Sofitel hotel, our bed for our last night in England, it was all wonderfully convenient. The Sofitel isn't cheap, but the rooms are comfortable (another upgrade), and it suited us to be virtually in the airport terminal ready for our morning flight.

The accommodation we'd booked for the three weeks was one of the best we've rented. A barn conversion on a farm (full of racehorses, the farm not the cottage), it was well appointed and very comfortable. The heating was oil-fired and the owners kept a fairly tight reign on it so renters don't splurge, and given that the price of heating oil doubled overnight as we arrived, we were OK with the way things were handled. It was chilly in the cottage sometimes, but there was a super wood burner, a bucket of logs, and backup electric heater, which would have been way cheaper to use than oil.

We had a list of things we wanted to do, and they were all achieved, bar perhaps visiting the town of Ashburton, but that was OK because we drove past it most days, and that counts. We had fish and chips, we had pasties (some quite exquisite), and the occasional pub meal. Offerings for the vegan were patchy, not as good as in previous visits, but still streets ahead of Ontario

We also did the family tree things we'd intended to by visiting Weston Mill Cemetery in Plymouth, as well as seeing Truro, South Brent, Appledore, Bideford, Bishops Lydeard, and Bridport. There was nothing very specific about any of it, bar eyeballing a few houses mentioned in census records, but it was something special to tread the same streets, go through the same doorways, and see the same sights, as our distant relatives did.

The extravagant car, the Volvo XC-60 Hybrid, was OK, although it did break one of my own rules in that it was a bit big for barrelling around the narrow lanes of rural Devon. I know people drive bigger vehicles around those tiny roads, but it would have been a wee bit easier with a car that was a bit narrower. Still, it was comfortable.

I didn't get out to walk as much as I should have, and I'll blame the weather and the hectic schedule. When I did get out, I was blown away by the greenness of everything. To understand that, you have to know that the interior of Canada stays stubbornly grey and brown until at least the end of March, so that vivid green (and red) in Devon was quite the shock.

Of course we achieved our primary aim, and that was to visit family. I don't write much about them, obviously, but I will say that it was wonderful to be in their company again, albeit only for a few weeks.

This is a link to some photos.