Toronto
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
85
90
Trip End
Jan 06, 2009
Toronto,
Ontario,
Canada
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Well, when we arrived in Toronto we had, as usual, nowhere to stay. Ashley recommended the Hotel opposite the Station. A particularly grand and beautiful Hotel where Tina Turner has stayed and lots of other celebs. Chandeliers, a firework of flowers in vases, sweeping staircases, highly polished mahogany everywhere.....however for $230 a night, we thanked the Reservations Desk and said "we'll think about it!"
We frantically searched on our i-Pods for another Hotel nearby. There was another one opposite the station. It turned out to be fantastic and because it was our Honeymoon they upgraded us to a King room. There was a pub attached to the Hotel and because it was already 8pm by the time we got down there we just had a quick drink and nibbles and then went to sleep by 11pm
CN Tower
. It was a fairly ordinary Canadian pub, nothing to report here!The next day, we went in search of refunds for our train ticket. Because our train from Vancouver to Toronto was over 4 hours late, we were entitled to a 50% discount from ViaRail!! (David: Bearing in mind that we'd got a winter deal already at 50% off... also, if the train had been 12 hours late we'd have got 100% back) After this, we went in search of the CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing building. I got confused by this term 'free standing' but a member of staff there told us free-standing simply meant not supported by concrete posts or wires etc. (David: Not sure why they specify 'freestanding' either. It is the tallest building in the World. End of...)
The brilliant aspect to Toronto is how the City has adapted it's surroundings to the harsh weather conditions. It was absolutely freeeeezzzzzing here and constantly snowing. Underneath Toronto is a subterranean world! a plethora of shops, like one big shopping mall accessed by a system of underground 'rat runs' and escalators. When the weather is atrocious you can shop to your heart's content underground! It's all brightly lit and tiled with a detailed map of how to get everywhere. It's genius! Which explains why the snowy streets above are so deserted. We just thought it was a lovely quiet City! To get to the CN Tower you can access it by another genius system: the Skywalk. This is another method of avoiding the arctic weather conditions outside. One long glass panelled walkway leads from the station all the way to the CN Tower by way of stairs, escalators and corridors. Approx 15min walk all in all. Whereas the locals were desperate to stay inside away from the frost-biting snow, David and I were revelling in the fluffy white stuff and couldn't wait to get back outside
From the CN Tower lift looking down
! As we emerged from the Skywalk, David said "wow! Look at it!" I spun my head like an owl and said "what?!" and at the sight of a big concrete post to my side, I slowly raised my eyes to the sky and shouted "oh it's here!!" I didn't realise the CN Tower was right beside my foot! I thought the brown concrete was just some sort of offensive post!! Bearing in mind, the CN Tower stands in the middle of fairly unremarkable land...car parks all around, cafes...a busy highway! not like the Eiffel Tower in the middle of a beautiful park, or the tower in Kuala Lumpa right beside a tropical jungle... how was I supposed to know?!
The CN Tower was indeed incredible viewing. However, because the weather was so snowy and overcast, you could not see as far as you would have had the weather been Californian sunshine. Still, we got to see Ontario Lake which was like a filmset of Titanic with icebergs everywhere!!! Strangely, although Ontario Lake is right beside the City, hardly any locals ever actually go to the Lake or probably know it's even there! But it's beautiful! Also strangely, you would think such a beautiful lake would incite a plethora of cafes and bars to open up at the front where you could sit and sip wine in the summer or watch hunky water-skiers smash up the water in their speeds
Me on top of Toronto!
. No. The Lake is instead beside a mass of factories and commercial property with no nicety to it at all. We had lunch looking out to the city below us. To be honest with you, it looked much like any other City we've visited but the snow gave it something magical as the skyscrapers reflected snow clouds in their windows. It took us 2 days to dredge up an itinerary for Toronto and Niagara Falls and whether we could fit in Chicago or whether we could fit in Quebec and then how would we get to New York and could we get to nearby Boston too and if so how? But eventually we had a plan. It was a good plan, even if we did waste a day in Toronto trying to do this.
However, Thifty, the car rental place, at Toronto Station soon screwed up our plans completely!! We decided to drive from Toronto down to Niagara Falls then up to Quebec, then down to Montreal where we would catch a bus or a train to Boston and then onto New York. We knew it would be a long drive......we've done the Outback in Oz after all....However, the lovely lady at Thrifty told us we would not be able to hire a car in Toronto and drop it in Montreal because Montreal driving laws insist on snow tyres or chains on all cars and Thrifty do not have any of these in Toronto. So it would not be possible for a Thrifty employee to drive the car back down to Toronto without these and getting pulled over
Lake Ontario seen from CN Tower
. Plus, we were also told that to drive from Toronto to Quebec and then Montreal would be no less than about 15 hours driving time. Hmmmmmmmmm...................Right, after 30mins on a cold metal station bench, a strong coffee out of a paper cup and our i-pod calendar, plan B was established! We decided to hire a car still, but this time only from Toronto to Niagara Falls for a few days then back to Toronto where we would catch a train up to Quebec (involved catching 2 trains and a total of 9.5 hours travelling arriving late at night) to meet up with Ashley (who we met on the Canadian train journey) then, after 3 days in Quebec we would catch another train to Montreal (3 hours journey) to visit more friends. After 3 days here, we would catch a bus to Boston (approx 8 hours journey). After 2 days here we would catch a train to New York (approx 5 hours journey) and we would be in New York for a whopping 4 days before our return home to UK!! Did you get all that?? David: And we'd get the train tickets for completely free because they were giving us 50% credit for the transcontinental delay: a delay we enjoyed actually!! The price of the tickets in comfort class were way below the credit we had. (You don't get the excess back). So, for a small pittance we upgraded to first class... around £30.)
We collected our Thrifty car the next day and began our drive down to Niagara Falls. How exciting!!! Niagara Falls baby! Yeah!!!!
Love, us xxxxxxxxxxx
