Day 105 Toronto Canada
Toronto,
Ontario,
Canada
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Day 105 Toronto Canada
Well after our experience yesterday we attacked this day a little differently, we changed the station option (we had spoken to a guy in the supermarket and he had suggested a different station on a different line) and also left earlier to attempt to get a park. The traffic was a little thick but considering it was peak hour it was to be expected, Mandy was programmed to take us and it asked if we wanted to avoid the tollway, We figured what the heck pay the toll and just catch the train.
Well all plain travelling but no toll booths, you have to have a transponder and all NON Quebec plates will be billed(according to a billboard we passed as we excited the tollway). Gee that might be interesting considering the Tags (plates) have not caught up with us yet! We certainly had every intention of paying but oh well!
We arrive at the rail station to find, Yep you guessed it, at 8:35am there are no parks available, we drove around a little and found a large Hardware store had ample parking with no signs limiting the time, so the Castle had found a home for the day.
We hot foot it over to the rail station to find the first door locked and the station undergoing renovations, but not deterred we went to the next building, it looked like a shop selling sweets, but had a ticket selling place for the rail, we obtain our tickets and read the timetable and board a train within about 15 mins, nice trains with large carriages and power points for public use in the seats as well as TV's giving the latest news as we are travelling and it is possible to tune to the frequency to hear what is being said.
A comfortable 50 min ride and we alight at Union Station, to walk out onto "front Street" at last, we are in Toronto, it only took 2 days to travel the 120 km from Niagara falls, but who cares, we are here.
First place we look for is a coffee shop, and obtained a free tour map of the city as we walked past a booth. Had the tea/coffee break and decided to take the two hour bus tour on the Double Decker bus.
Walked back to the booth and talked to the young lady that gave us the map and obtained the tickets for the bus tour, as well as a harbour tour. Great we are on our way, we caught a bus at 11:05 and the narration around by the young lady was well done, she knew her city and the buildings and history, very informative and made the tour fun to listen too.
We decided to get off at the Castle house (Casa Loma, Castle on the hill (Spanish) Rick recalled from his previous visit (although he was getting confused about which city he had seen it in, because it really was not advertised in the brochures we had gathered about Toronto)
The self guided tour of this Castle built in 1911 by an extremely rich Canadian, Sir Henry Pellat who had made a lot of money investing and building the first electric power station on Niagara falls, with an exclusive contract to provide Toronto with electricity, as well as investments in Rail stock etc, he was a very loyal Subject of the English Royals as well as a keen army man.
His Castle was interesting and wonderful to visit, he and his wife only managed to live 11 years in the castle/House, before fortune turned on him and he lost his money during or around 1921, because of taxes and land investments that were not profitable. A note here also contributing to his demise was the government decided at the time to make electricity an essential service and claimed the power station and service for the state and he received no compensation
All of the Contents as well as the Castle were sold to pay his debts; some contents secured by being in his wife's name, a lot of the original contents have been returned to the Castle after it was set up and maintained by the Gov via the Kiwanis.
Certainly a wonderful tribute to the man and the house, or some rooms can still be hired for functions and the kitchens are working kitchens.
We reboarded our tour (now a trolley as opposed to the double Decker that dropped us off) and travelled around and completed the tour around the city to be dropped off for the harbour tour.
This gave us ten minutes to grab a hot dog for lunch (a Little late mind you!) and then climb aboard the boat to take the view of the city skyline from the boat, as it went across the harbour to the Toronto Islands.
This was an enjoyable short half hour trip across this water to the parkland Islands just across from the city. A short narration was great that gave information about the Islands history, from being Casinos and hotels in the prohibition era of the 1920's visited by a lot of Americans to the end of Prohibition, and the bulldozing down of the buildings and acquired for parklands to be enjoyed by the people of Toronto. Also a section of one of the islands has, "Clothing optional" beach to the lake foreshore, it is only one of two in Canada, the other being in Vancouver area. The remarkable point with this Beach being, the land/beach area is under the parks authority and they have allowed the option of clothes or not, the water is under another authority that say swimming naked is illegal and you are able to be fined for "indecent exposure". Gee how do they issue the tickets, one is left considering?
There is an air strip, put in for the training of the Norwegian Pilots in the second world war, this is still an air strip, restricted to prop planes and used by ten flying schools to train pilots. A Debate still goes on, like in most places of the world, about a bridge or no bridge, to the islands, so far the no bridge lobbyists have won.
We returned to the city and decided to inquire about the CN Tower trip, we were informed there was a 45 min queue for the first level and another hour to gain the second level, a quick conference decided that we didn't require the trip up there, we walked around a little more to return to Union Street station with the thousands of other commuters to catch a train home at 4:50pm. This was not a big deal and we found seats and the train left on time, we also found it was a fast train that took only 30 mins to return us to the station we had left from in the morning, at this time of day the trains apparently run every 3 to 5 mins up until around 5:30 then they slow to every 15 mins and stretch out to half an hour at around 6:30 - 7pm.
Certainly an efficient way to unload a city without stress.
We found the Castle Safe and sound shining in the afternoon sun, headed back to the KOA from last night and had dinner.
Another day in the tough life of the Aussie travellers, did we see all there is to see in Toronto? A question may be asked, well most likely not, but we are happy with our over view. It has a complex of underground walkways and shops of around 25 km we didn't explore, but hey! we can get lost easily enough on the surface without entering the "Warrens below" that are there to allow them to live in a snowed in icy winter wonderland!
There are only so many museums and knowledge we can absorb, we don't think we are doing to badly in covering the bits we see and certainly we have the opinion, if there is something one of the three wants to return to it is no problem.
Tomorrow further east towards Montreal and see what that city has to offer in history of simply being itself.
