We had an uneventful Air Canada flight (albeit so full we couldn’t sit together) to Toronto. Although it was lovely to be reminded of the wonder of flying by my young travel companion Joshua, who was flying for the first time, everything was a novelty and sooooo cool for him. It’s so easy to become complacent about these things when you do them often.
We managed to get the bus to Hamilton with no hiccups, having bought Presto travel cards from the terminal ($6 each then preload) which then covered us for Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa. We spent the next couple of days with Andy’s cousins and their families who we’d either not seen for 40 + years or never met at all – great to catch up with everyone. The first day we got soaked but then the sun came out but brrr was it cold, thank goodness for hat and gloves! Whilst in Hamilton, we came across the site of the first Tim Hortons donut shop (now a worldwide coffee chain, set up originally by a Canadian hockey player) in Ottawa Street and, sadly for my waistline, they do sell incredible doughnuts (oh dear!).
Next was the bus to Toronto and on to find our 2nd Airbnb, a lovely studio hosted by the amazing Deanna, a real gem, who went over and above to help us with the local area. This enabled us to sample the delights of the Godspeed brewery, the delicious cheese at The Pantry and on Easter Sunday we treated ourselves to wonderfully fluffy pancakes from the Lazy Daisy cafe – all in the Gerald Street East area.
We spent the next couple of gloriously sunny days exploring bits of Toronto. Managing to reach the 101st floor of the CN Tower (quite expensive, but the queues weren’t too long and worth it to see the views over the city and shoreline of Lake Ontario), we checked out the free Railway Museum on the site of the old Roundhouse that used to house 32 train sheds serviced by a huge turntable, strolled along the Toronto shoreline before heading inland to the historic Distillery District. The old Gooderham & Worts brewery buildings now house cafes, shops and restaurants – good to see these old buildings reused instead of demolished. The St Lawrence Market was closed, being Easter, so we’ll try and get there when we come back to Toronto later this month. Instead we visited The Beaches area and walked the Boardwalk past Woodbine and Kew beaches before heading inland for ice cream!!
We had a short but enjoyable trip and were soon on the Via Rail train to Ottawa. This was an experience, rather like checking in at an airport – you have to have a booked seat, arrive early to have your ticket checked and baggage weighed before boarding. The rails and platforms are really low compared to UK ones and the trains are very high up – making it a bit of a struggle to get your luggage on board! 4 1/2 hours later we arrived in Canada’s capital city ready to explore for 3 days.