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.