Canada Day!
Trip Start
Jun 29, 2008
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Trip End
Jul 04, 2008
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
From there we had to walk a little to get up the hill where Casa Loma is located, and then climb lots and lots and lots of stairs. There is a great view of downtown from up there though once you get up to the top.
We went into Casa Loma, the kids and I using our City Passes and DH got a AAA discount. Included in the entrance fee is use of the audio guide, which I thought was useful--and you could pick and choose what you wanted to get information about.
Casa Loma is actually run now by the Kiwanis Club. It was originally built from 1911-1914 by a wealthy self-made man, Henry Pellatt, and his wife who spared no expense in building it (including a $10,000 bathroom--and those were in the dollars of the day). But eventually they lost all their money and their belongings. The man was happy, though, to see Casa Loma taken over by the Kiwanis; he could not afford its upkeep.
The place is absolutely huge and trully a castle. The gardens are beautiful. There is a lot of rooms to see, and we got worn out walking here and there and up and down the stairs. There is also an 800 foot tunnel that goes from the office to the stables.
After Casa Loma, we thought about doing the Spadina Museum next door, which is also a house with period furniture and garden, but we were DONE. So we took the metro down to the harbourfront. I had looked up the places where Canada Day activities were going to be located before we left, and the harbor seemed like the best place.
The metro dropped us off near Union Station, so we walked through that, by the CN Tower, and then we still had a bit of a walk to the harbor. We were all starved, so we were looking for a place to eat. Before we got to the lake, we came upon Steam Whistle Brewing Co. where they were pulling people in for free samples of beer and water for the kids. It was rather warm, so we took them up on it. I have to say, it was a very tasty pilsner.
We finally made it to the harbor. We got our Canadian flags and pins and went on a hunt for food. The best we could do amongst the throng of people and booths were free samples of milk and Fibre1 bars. Groan. We went to a couple of restaurants on the pier, but they were full. We ended up at the Radisson Hotel across the street, desperate for something to eat.
We were told the restaurant was upstairs, but when we got up there, the restaurant was closed. Our only option was to sit in this meager lounge and order bar food. The pool was just outside which we got a full view through the wall of glass windows. The bar was overrun with drink orders from the pool. Uggghhh. It took FOREVER to get our food, but I tell ya, it was fantastic; much better than we had expected. So it worked out ok. I then took some pics from the pool area and then we went back down to the Canada Day festivities.
We went through the PawsWay exhibit which was all about dogs (the kids HAD to see it). They had some dogs in the back...where you could meet Canadian breeds: Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retriever, Newfoundland, Labrador Retriever etc. They had cats too in this separate room, but I didn't go anywhere near there. I'm allergic to dogs, but I'm even more allergic to cats. I did fine walking around though, even with tufts of fur floating around on the floor.
From there we meandered through the booths again, nothing too exciting though. By then we were kinda tired, and there was no way we were waiting for the fireworks. So we started back towards the hotel. We weren't sure if we could use our metro pass on the trolleys (we found out later we could), so we went to the subway station and took it up to Dundas Square and walked to the hotel from there.
We relaxed for awhile. I watched some French t.v. We decided to get pizza and eat it in room. There is a Pizza Hut across the street. We figured we'd just watch the fireworks from our room window (since we had a good view of downtown and the harbor) or from the roof (with an even better view of all of Toronto).
DH and DS went and got the pizza and brought it back; it was mighty tasty. We kept waiting for the fireworks. We would hear one go off every now and then, but it was always an individual lighting one off.
Finally, DH and DS decided to go up to the roof; DD and I stayed in the room. We saw a few big fireworks that looked like they were from across the lake (they were so miniscule). The boys said they saw a couple from the other direction. But that was pretty much it. Where were the fireworks? I guess Toronto doesn't know how to put on a fireworks display!
