Toronto, or What I did on my Holidays. (Part 1)

Last summer, my friend Lyle got in touch with me to tell me he'd won a holiday through the #CokeSummer promotion Coca Cola were running, and did I fancy a free holiday to Toronto?

Well, there is only one possible answer to that!

We flew out on an early morning flight, which was delayed a couple of hours, and the flight is 7 hours, so we were a little bit tired and slightly spaced out by the time we arrived. Our package was supposed to include airport transfers, and we were indeed met by a very nice car, and friendly driver. Who then proceeded to take us to entirely the wrong hotel, (entirely due to a cock up by the travel agency, who despite having booked the hotel, apparently didn't know where it was) So we had a rather long taxi drive (in a less posh car) back past the airport to the hotel!

Henry Moore outside Art Gallery of Ontario

Once we'd checked in, we found food, then went for a wander to look at downtown Toronto.

We found the Art Gallery of Ontario, and a rather nice Henry Moore outside it, and also found the Roundhouse  what's left of a huge rail depot and turntable, with a selection of railway engines and carriages on display.

And of course,the CN Tower. Which is  very tall, and visible from all over the place!

We also saw (and heard) a peregrine falcon, outside the stadium by the tower.

CNTower

So an interesting start to the trip.  The following morning we started out with a walk down past the Tower, to the lakeside. On the way we found a totem pole, with lots of beautiful sea creatures on it.

Further on, we walked through the remembrance garden (with memorials to Canadians who fought in WW2) and on to Princes Gate at Exhibition Place, erected in 1927. Very imposing.

Princes Gate

We then visited Fort York - there were barracks on the site in the 1790s, with more substantive buildings and fortifications erected in 1811, as relationships between the USA and Britain deteriorated. The current site has some of the original buildings, others which have been reconstructed, and a modern museum and visitor centre.

Fort York

It was very interesting, and several of the buildings were furnished as they would have been in 1812 (with officers getting 2 rooms each, and enlisted men sleeping in quad bunks, with around 30 of them in the same amount of space a single officer would have.

On the way back we wandered into a rather lovely little church, the church of the Holy Trinity (mostly, it must be said, because it has some rather nice little turrets on the outside, and because I like churches) 

Church of the Holy Trinity

It turned out to have a lovely interior, with some gorgeous modern stained glass (apparently it lost the original, 19thC glass down one side of the church in a fire in the 1970s) 

The church was built in the 1840s with a legacy from an Englishwoman who stipulated that the pews must always be free (it was normal practice at the time for them to be rented to parishioners) so anyone, rich or poor, could attend. The church's original congregation included freed slaves, and over time it's also been welcoming to the poor, the homeless, to LGBTQ people - it holds a regular memorial service for homeless people. All in all, a lovely little church with a fascinating history.

We popped into the Eaton Mall which is next door - it's a vast shopping centre (not my favourite kind of place) but pretty appealing as these things go, and home to a gorgeous bit of public art, consisting of a flock of flying geese, suspended in the air at one end of the Mall.

And also visited Nathan Phillips Square, home of City Hall,  an interesting and dramatic bit of architecture in its own right.

City Hall

It was shortly after this that we discovered Craft, a bar / restaurant with over 100 beers on tap, and some pretty tasty food, too.

All this, and only the end of the first full day!