Chasing Waterfalls – Day 3

Although I had slept in stops and starts and had spent a short while reading around 4:00 AM, I managed to sleep until 07:00 AM. Graham had managed to sleep through the night, but was awake at that stage as well. We got up and ready. Then we headed down to breakfast.

Graham started with fruit and mini pastries again. He then had a plate of cold cuts, cheese, tomato, cucumber, bread and a boiled egg. He had coffee and grapefruit juice with his breakfast. I started with tinned pears, mandarin oranges, and granola with sliced almonds again. I also had a Boston cream donut. Then I had a plate with cheese , sausage, and boiled eggs. I also had some toasted rye bread with peanut butter. I washed this down with coffee and orange juice.

I had spotted a beautiful clock in courtyard outside the buffet the day before. I decided to check if I could get out there. I found a door and took some photos. This was when I realised just how lucky we were. While we had enjoyed summer weather in Niagara the day before, Toronto had thunderstorms and hail bringing cooler weather with them. The temperature that day never went above the low teens, but with beautiful blue skies and sunshine plus the fact that most parts of Toronto are very sheltered, it felt warmer than this. It was perfect walking weather. On the flip side, Niagara had heavy rain that day. If we had switched our itinerary around, it would have been utterly miserable. Fortunately, we were similarly blessed for most of our trip.

 

After breakfast, we headed back to the room to get what we needed for the day. Then we headed out. I had found out when we started planning this trip that one of the downtown hotels has a Persian ceiling installation by Dale Chihuly. As I am a huge fan, this was on the top of my to do list. We decided to head there first. We headed in the general direction of Denny’s as there was a streetcar stop near there. The corresponding streetcar would take us to just round the corner of the hotel we wanted to go to. It turns out that the streetcar stops in the downtown area are not very obvious. I think we overshot the stop we had been looking for. I then found a tiny logo and a timetable for the streetcar on a lamppost further down the street. We waited for a while, but no streetcar appeared. In the end, Graham decided to give up and head to the cathedral instead. Like so many decisions we made this trip, this turned out to be an absolute blessing.

 

The cathedral in question was St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica, which is the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Toronto. It is one of the oldest churches in Toronto and was designed in the English Gothic Revival style. The original church was built in the mid 19th century, but has gone through multiple renovations and additions. 

 

When we got there, there did not seem to be much life. I wondered if the church was not due to open until 10:00. A quick look on their website indicated that the church had been open since 07:00. I checked the door, and it was indeed unlocked. We headed inside. As Roman Catholic cathedrals go, this was relatively small and not as ornate, but it was still a very pretty church. We sat down for a while and  enjoyed our surroundings. Just as we were about to leave, I got an alert that online check in for our flight the following day at opened. I quickly completed this and then we headed out.

 

I had found out that there was also an Anglican cathedral not too far away and we decided the check this out. Toronto is a city that is highly walkable and has something of interest around just about every corner. Like so many other modern cities, it has a fair number of skyscrapers. However, Toronto is rather proud of its city planning and each of the skyscrapers is unique. There are also a good number of historical buildings that complement the modern skyscrapers or even have been incorporated into skyscrapers. The only place I have seen this kind of thing before is in Abu Dhabi. I wish more places would embrace their heritage in this way.

On the way to the St. James’s cathedral, we passed another beautiful church. Metropolitan United Church is a historic Neo-Gothic style church. It is one of the largest and most prominent churches of the United Church of Canada. The church was built around the same time as St. Michael’s Cathedral. Unfortunately, it was not due to open for another two hours. I would have loved to have a look inside. I could spot some interesting looking stained-glasswindows from the outside. Indeed, the church is famous for its stained-glass windows. We definitely have to check this out when we come back to Toronto.

 

We took a little detour to check out St. James’ Park. This is meant to be one of the places in Toronto to see the cherry blossoms. We were pondering going to a different park that has the highest concentration of cherry trees in Toronto. However, this is a bit further outside the city. We figured if there were cherry blossoms at St. James’s Park, it would be worth our while. However, there was no signs of cherry blossoms. Instead, we pushed on to St. James’ Cathedral. Again, this was built around the same time as the other two churches and also was designed in the Gothic Revival style. However, the interior is a lot more ornate with ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, and pointed arches. Again, we spent a while just sitting down and enjoying our surroundings.

 

Opposite St. James’ Cathedral was a branch of Tim Horton’s. We now have one of those in the city centre in Manchester, but although I had donuts and other food from them before, I never had a coffee from them. We were both ready for something to drink and went inside. Graham had an Americano,and I had a sweet vanilla cream cold brew. This was nice enough, but not the best coffee we had in Canada.

We pushed on in the general direction of the hotel with the Chihuly installation. We came past a bank on the way and this one was inclined to give me some cash. We also found a chemist. Last year when we were in Vancouver, we got some Claritin gel tabs. As I have issues swallowing normal tablets, this was a godsend. I wanted to get some more. I also found out that Neo Claritin is available over the counter in Canada. I had this as a prescription in the past and this is the most effective antihistamine I ever had. This is not available in the UK. Unfortunately, they were out of the gel tab version, but I got some ordinary Neo Claritin tablets as well as some Zyrtec gel cabs. We are now set for antihistamines for the next year.

We came past yesterday another interesting church. St. Andrew’s was opened in 1876 and is therefore a little bit more recent than the other three churches.  It is home to one of the oldest Presbyterian congregations in Canada and was built in a Romanesque Revival style. This church is slightly disorientating as it has a slope. The back of the church is higher than the altar. This is utterly fascinating. This was another very pretty church.

 

Shortly afterwards we passed a square with a very familiar looking statue. This was called He Was on a Ride to a Safer Place and is another  Gillie and Marc statue featuring the characters Rabbitwoman and Dogman. This is the third city where I have seen their work after Sydney and New York. I still have not got around to check out their local artwork. We were lucky that we got to see this. This was a temporary instalment from May 2024 to May 2025. 

 

At the other end of the square was one of the access points to the PATH. The PATH is a large underground pedestrian network connecting office towers, retail areas, and other buildings. It’s considered the world’s largest underground shopping complex, spanning over 30 kilometres (19 miles) of tunnels and walkways. We decided to have a look. The part that was in this area is currently being refurbished. There was not a great deal open. We went back up to street level. From there, we were only a short distance away from the Soho Metropolitan hotel where the Chihuly installation is.

From the photos that I had I seen, I was under the impression that the Chihuly installation was inside the hotel. However, it is actually outside above one of the entrances. It also looked much more impressive in the photos than it did in real life. Still, even a mediocre Chihuly is better than no Chihuly.

 

From there, it was not far to the CN Tower. We headed in that general direction. I was undecided if I wanted to go up and we sat down for a while on the square in front of it. In the end, I decided that I would regret if we did not go up. I am glad we did. Some of the views from up there were stunning. We took our time soaking everything in before we headed down to the lower level of the observationarea. The view from there was very different. Then we headed out. Graham picked up a couple of very funny t-shirts at the gift shop.

 

We cut through Roundhouse Park. Roundhouse Park is a 17-acre park in the former Railway Lands. It features the John Street Roundhouse, a preserved locomotive roundhouse that houses the Toronto Railway Museum, Steam Whistle Brewing, and the Rec Room restaurant and entertainment complex. The park is also home to a collection of trains, the former Canadian Pacific Railway Don Station, and the Roundhouse Park Miniature Railway, which operates during the summer months. I think this as deserved a bit of a closer look on a future visit.

 

On this occasion, we just got through there to get to the waterfront. I love bluejays and apparently, they can often be found by the waterfront. I managed to get a photo of the CN Tower as the path from Roundhouse Park to the waterfront is on a slope. 

 

The waterfront is a pretty area and a fantastic spot to just relax and watch the world go by. I never saw any bluejays, but I saw something equally good. They have grackles in Toronto, which are one of my favourite birds. Unlike their US cousins that seem to be without fear, the grackles in Toronto are quite timid and flighty. It was a real treat to see them.

 

After a while, we headed back towards the street running just above the waterfront. There is a streetcar stop there and a quick check on the journey planner indicated that we could get back to our hotel in one change. We just missed a streetcar, but the next one was not too far behind. The streetcar stop there was a proper stop. I was surprised that there were no ticket machines there. I know that the streetcars accept contactless payments and that is what we were planning to do, but I know not everybody uses this. It turns out that the streetcars have a ticket machine on board.

It took a fair while to get to our interchange stop as there was a lot of traffic. Still, we were in no rush. The route was quite interesting. When we got to the interchange stop, we realised why we had not seen a proper stop in the morning. The streetcars just stop in the middle of the road, and you have to get off into passing traffic. I assume there are some rules regarding the streetcars as the drivers were very patient and stopped for people getting on and off the streetcars. It still seemed a rather strange way of going about this.

The streetcar actually stopped right in front of Denny’s. Normally I could not have resisted this, but as the food was nothing special the day before, we decided to check what else there is around. As our hotel was right in the middle of the business district, a lot of the restaurants in this area where just open of breakfast and lunch. There was a Red Lobster near the hotel. As I don’t eat seafood that was not very tempting especially as I could not get a menu to load on my phone. 

Instead, we ended up at a place called Rex’s Bar and Grill. This was a rather grand name for what it was. I think the technical term for places like this is a dive bar. It had a slightly seedy feel to it. There was a lot of outside seating, and they had a barbecue going. Inside were a few ordinary tables as well as some high tables with no chairs or stools near the bar. The menu was a laminated sheet of paper. Still, service as good and it was encouraging that there were plenty of locals around. The food was simple, but tasted amazing. Graham had nachos, which he really enjoyed. I had the home-made chicken tenders with fries, and slaw. Normally they come with honey-mustard dressing, which I don’t like. I did spot that they had ranch dressing on the menu, and I asked for this instead. The chicken tenders were amazing. They were very crunchy on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. They may well have been the best chicken tenders I ever had. The sides hit the spot, too. Graham had a local IPA with his dinner, but as we still had wine in the room, I just had a Coke.

 

Rather than taking the most direct route back to the hotel, Graham decided to take a slight detour as we had not been down that particular road before. There was nothing of interest on that particular road, but it led to another road that we had not been on that not only took us straight back to the hotel, but was also very pretty. Right next to the hotel was a fascinating building. This was St. George’s Hall. St. George’s Hall was constructed in 1891 for the St. George’s Society, a charitable organisation supporting English immigrants. The building features an eclectic blend of architectural styles, combining elements of Romanesque, Flemish, and medieval architecture. This makes it very interesting. Since 1920, it has been home to the Arts and Letters Club. The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto is a private members’ club, which brings together writers, architects, musicians, painters, graphic artists, actors and others working in or with a love of the arts and letters. It was founded in 1908 as a gentlemen’s club, but women have been members since 1985. From photos that I have seen, it is even more fascinating on the inside than it is on the outside. It is open for non-members on Friday afternoons and if we should ever find ourselves in Toronto on a Friday, I would love to check this out.

 

For the time being, our sightseeing was done. When we got back to the hotel, we went straight back to the room. We had the rest of the Gewürztraminer Riesling blend while we were reorganising our luggage. Then we took turns having a shower. The idea of this did not exactly fill me with joy after the experience I had the previous day. I decided to put a towel in the tub to see if this made it less slippery and this indeed worked. I got showered without any excitement.

Once we were both ready, we decided to have the ice wine. This had a genuine cork in it, which was quite crumbly. Combine this with a corkscrew that was quite low-tech, and this was a bit of a challenge. Eventually I won this battle, and we enjoyed our ice wine while just relaxing . Once we had finished this, we got ready for bed. Graham went to sleep straightaway, but I read for a bit before settling down for the night as well.