The drive from Niagara Falls to Toronto on a Sunday afternoon in August during the height of tourist season wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The traffic wasn’t terrible and the lush green scenery was pleasant. But after a morning and afternoon trekking all over the Ontario side of Niagara Falls, the grown-ups in the car were nearly overwhelmed by a wave of exhaustion. It was all we could do to stay awake during our journey! As an added level of complexity, albeit minor, our rental car, which we had picked up in Buffalo, only showed us velocity in miles per hour, so I was rapid fire calculating kph to mph so Sean could try to follow the rules (or knowingly not follow them) as the speed limit varied.

As seen in Graffiti Alley

When I was originally thinking through this trip, I had thought we might stop in at either Niagara-on-the-Lake or at St Catharine’s to visit one of the local wineries and sample the regions famous wines. As everything kept taking much longer than anticipated, we abandoned that idea for this leg of the trip, thinking maybe we’d shoehorn it in on our drive back to Buffalo the following Saturday.

By the time we rolled into our hotel and relaxed for a little while, it was getting pretty late. No one was particularly hungry, so we walked to Dairy Queen and let the kids have Blizzards for an evening treat, and Sean and I shared an order of mushroom-truffle noodles from a place called Petit Potato. Ian in particular seemed astonished that he wouldn’t be required to eat “real” dinner. (I did check with him to see if he was actually hungry, and he confirmed he wasn’t.)

We discovered on our way out to fetch dinner / dessert, that our hotel had a revolving door. Over the week, we discovered that many of the other buildings had them as well. The kids LOVED them. I have a notion this will be a defining feature of Toronto for them – the city with all the revolving doors.

Before we left Texas, our week in Toronto looked like it was going to be nothing but rainy days – we even brought our raincoats along. That first evening in our hotel when we checked the forecast, it showed us rain only on Monday. With that in mind, we chose to spend the next day inside at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Day 1 – ROM, Poop Cafe, Nathan Philips Square

We started our morning with breakfast at a nearby Tim Hortons. As I understand it, Tim Horton’s is to Canada as Starbucks is to the United States. I can tell you that no matter where we were on our trip, it seemed that there was always one nearby. Sean and the kids split a box of doughnuts while I had some kind of maple bacon breakfast sandwich.

Maya loves mass transit

After breakfast, we made our way to the subway station to head further into Toronto. We had chosen our hotel in part because it was right on the main north-south subway line. When we got there, we discovered we wouldn’t even have to leave the building to board the train.  The TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) manages the subway, streetcar, and bus system in Toronto. For the days we’d be taking the subway system, we went ahead and bought the full day pass, which got us access to subway, streetcars, and buses all day long.

The kids, since they were between the ages of 0 and 12, were able to ride for free. It was never entirely clear to us how to correctly get them through the gate. If there was an agent around, they’d walk them through a special gate, while we tapped through with our day passes. If there was no gate agent around, each grown up would take a kid, tap our passes, and walk two people through when our gate opened.

Old ROM, new ROM

The Royal Ontario Museum, or the ROM as it’s known to the locals, is impossible to miss. The Michael Lee Chin Crystal, named for the man whose donation made the project possible, is an angular metal-and-glass addition to the museum. The museum’s original structure is still there, standing in stark contrast to the more modern addition jutting out from it. I get the impression the locals either love it or hate it – rarely are their reactions ambivalent about the building’s aesthetic.

Maya and dragon

The museum itself is a behemoth encompassing art, artifacts and ancient culture, science, nature, and probably more that I’m not adequately categorizing. If we lived in Toronto, we’d buy a membership and visit often, letting our interests of the moment dictate which exhibits we saw. It is too much to consume in a single day. We saw artifacts from ancient civilizations from all over the world, tons of preserved animal specimens (including hummingbirds, to Maya’s chagrin), minerals, meteorites, replicas of dinosaur skeletons, and on and on and on.

The Ian-corn

We also sprung for the special exhibit, Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature. This exhibit lets you inhabit the world of Harry Potter and Newt Scamander for a little while, with particular focus on the magic creatures that exist therein. What I liked about it is that it drew the kids in by talking about dragons and unicorns but linked those magical creatures to the real world animals they may have derived from. Magical elements were featured throughout – drawers and cabinets that moved of their own accord, bowtruckles that would defend their trees, and nifflers that needed to be offered treasure. But there were also placards warning of the endangerment of certain species and information about real animals and what traits they share with the creatures of the wizarding world.

Artful, yes, but these chairs were too slippery to sit in comfortably

My only gripe about the Fantastic Beast exhibit, and I guess I should expect these capitalistic shenanigans by now, is that to exit you must go through a gift shop. Our kids have definitely gotten better about dealing with souvenir purchasing. A lot of that is probably a byproduct of them getting older, and some of it may stem from our requirement that they largely spend their own money on them. But, and I’m sorry to be this person, I still think they’re a giant hassle. I get so distracted with what the kids want and the negotiating and the gently talking them out of silly crap that I usually leave without ever having considered whether I might like something.

We had lunch during our visit as well. And it was … fine. I don’t remember if you’re able to leave and then come back later, but if the weather is good, that may be preferable to eating there.

After a very long and lovely visit to the museum, we took the subway over to the Koreatown area. During trip planning, I had watched a few videos of locals showing things they’d recommend in Toronto. In one, I learned about the Poop Cafe. Believe me, I know, it sounds gross. But the desserts looked pretty epic, and I knew that Maya and Ian would get a kick out of it. Think of it as the kid-centric reward for putting up with several hours at a museum.

Poop Cafe – it’s an experience

We walked to what we thought was the address of the Poop Cafe, and it was all boarded up and clearly closed. So sad! But then we noticed a sign pointing us to a new address, and a passing local said, “Oh, you want the Poop Cafe? It’s moved just a couple blocks away.” Sure enough, a short walk later, we were greeted by a statue of a happy pile of poop.

Oreo Freak Shake

Inside, the decor is on point. There are commodes for seats at many of the tables, cute stuffed poop emojis tossed around in some of the chairs, and a giant kawaii poop hanging out in the back of the store. The desserts are massive, magnificently garnished, exactly the kind of thing a kid would adore. Sean and the kids ordered towering Freak Shakes, chocolate chip for Maya and Dad, Oreo for Ian. I am not a huge chocolate person, so I ordered a lychee bingsu (shaved ice), which – to the kids’ delight- came served in a miniature porcelain toilet bowl. Everything was tasty enough, but the out of this world part wasn’t so much about creative flavors and exceptional execution. It was more about bathroom theming and over-the-topness.

Lychee Bingsu

There was a funny moment when Maya needed the rest room and we hadn’t yet located it. She was completely tickled by the irony that something called the Poop Cafe with its toilet bowl seats wouldn’t have a bathroom. Eventually we did find it, down the stairs and near a pile of commodes which we were guessing were destined to become additional seating in the future. All in all it was a fun experience, especially for the kids.

We were all still suffering a bit of a Niagara Falls hangover (we did a LOT of walking), so we decided to head back to the hotel to rest for a little while. Sean wandered over to the LCBO store across the street from our hotel. LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) stores are essentially government run liquor stores. We were able to purchase wine at a retail store, but I believe liquor can only be purchased from an LCBO shop.

Sean’s haul from the LCBO store

Sean went to the one nearest us out of curiosity. I suggested he try to come back with some wine since we didn’t get to try any while we were in Niagara. He came back instead with a “build your own” eight-pack filled with interesting beers for us to try out as we chose over the next several days.

City Hall at Nathan Phillips Square

Near sunset, we again all boarded the subway and headed toward Nathan Phillips Square to see City Hall and check out the famous TORONTO sign. The kids had so much fun wandering around the square taking photos and videos to their hearts’ content. After snapping photos as we entered the square, across from the sign, at the sign, and across from the sign again but from a higher vantage point, we decided we “needed” a late night snack (we really didn’t).

Kids hanging out in one of the TORONTO Os

We walked over to a small lineup of street carts. As we headed that way, we passed some folks, presumably without homes to go to, sleeping in quiet corners. While they slept, we also startled some very large and vigorous rats. The kids were delighted by the rats and were pointing and exclaiming. We used this moment to try to show them the sleeping people and how it would be kinder to keep our voices down and let them sleep. They seemed to take all of this in stride – I expected more questions, but none came.

After the Maya and Ian enjoyed some fries and Mom and Dad enjoyed some poutine, we took the subway back up to our hotel and crashed for the night.

Day 2 – Casa Loma, St Lawrence Market, Distillery District

We had planned for Tuesday to be our big touristy CN Tower and Toronto Islands day, but then we woke up to heavy cloud cover that would reportedly last all day long. Instead we decided to visit Casa Loma. After a slowish start, another Tim Hortons breakfast, a subway ride, and a walk, we arrived.

Casa Loma

Casa Loma is a castle-esque mansion built in the early 1900s for Sir Henry Pellatt. Apparently it took 300 people not quite 11 years to build. The castle is a nearly 200,000 square feet – the largest in North America.

After taking some outside photos, we bought admission tickets, picked up our audio guides (included with admission), and wandered around for most of the self-guided tour. We’d go to an area of the museum, punch the posted number into our guides, and then hold the thing up to our ears and listen to what the narrator had to say. I honestly found it interesting. Maya lasted for part of the first commentary before she was abandoning her guide. Ian made it through about half the tour before he as well was handing me his guide. And so it was that I went through most of the grounds with three audio guides hanging from my neck.

Inside Casa Loma

The house was interesting as a period piece. One of the facts I remember hearing is that at a time when the whole city of Toronto had maybe 200 telephones, there were something like 50 scattered throughout the house. As Sir Henry is considered to have brought electric power to the city, it is unsurprising that his home sports many features that would have been considered luxuries at the time, not least of which is electric lighting through the house.

Speaking of interesting luxuries, in keeping with our theme, the kids were weirdly interested in how the bathrooms worked. I too was taken with one of the features. It seems that Pellatt was ahead of his time in having a shower that had a multi-head set-up that was designed to spray him from all sides. His study had secret passages that we got to examine. We got to climb narrow spiral staircases into the castle’s two towers, from which the views of downtown Toronto were lovely.

Prince presiding

There were a few non-period visuals in the castle as well. My favorite is the portrait of Prince in, I think, the Great Oak Room. I thought it must surely be someone’s idea of a joke, and maybe it is, but the work was specifically commissioned for placement at Casa Loma, not by Sir Pellatt, obviously. These days the City of Toronto owns and operates Casa Loma as a tourist attraction and entertainment complex.

The lower level boasts a Hollywood Film Gallery, with movie posters and placards explaining how the given movie was related to Casa Loma. More films than I’d have anticipated have had scenes filmed here. Throughout portions of the castle grounds, we also saw evidence of the various escape room adventures hosted at Casa Loma. The odd dragon here and there, various props and clues and set design were tucked into towers and hallways and nooks.

“That unicorn looks mad”

At the tail end of our visit, we walked the underground tunnel to the stables. This featured Toronto’s Dark Side exhibit, showing images of fires and illnesses and whatnot that had befallen fair Toronto over the years. Sean and I didn’t get to read too much because by this point the kids were pretty all done, and we were just trying to at least get a glimpse of the grounds. Weirdly, to get back to the main castle, we were sort of shunted through this waxworks exhibit (except I think it was silicon, not wax) showing scenes from the movies that had been featured in the Hollywood Film Gallery.

At long last we were finally through the castle and ready to breath the open air. The nice thing about it having rained the day before is that the heat wave (think 90-ish degrees at the high end) had ended and lovely cooler weather (mid 70s-low 80s), the kind we had been hoping for, had descended. We sat outside for a while and hatched a plan to head over to St Lawrence Market to eat a late lunch and check out the market.

Inside St Lawrence Market

We had a lovely lunch courtesy of Buster’s Sea Cove. Each of us got seafood dishes we were pleased with, and Ian was able to get chicken fingers. The one sour note is that Maya had decided the lobsters in the tanks throughout the market were cute, and so she spent the better part of the lunch lecturing me about the cruelty of my very delicious lobster roll.

Macarons

After lunch, we had a stroll through the different levels of the market on the hunt for dessert and whatever else we might happen across. The meat and seafood counters had us wishing we had an AirBNB, so that we could cook some meals. The produce was varied and gorgeous. St Lawrence Market is boxed in by Market St, Front St, Jarvis St, and the Esplanade and helpful street signs have been placed throughout the building, presumably to keep you oriented.

Fountain at Berczy Park

After the market, we headed back toward our subway station with a few stops in between. I wanted to see the Gooderham Building, which is Toronto’s local flatiron, and we all wanted to check out the neat fountain at Berczy Park. This fountain features a bunch of dogs staring up at a golden bone. Water arcs out of their mouths, feeding the fountain. Tucked amongst them is a solitary cat who is of course looking an entirely different direction. I’ve read that he’s looking at some birds on a lamp post a few meters away, but I failed to notice that while we were there. The kids LOVED this fountain and we spent quite a while photographing various aspects of it.

Finally, we headed back to the hotel. We let the kids partake of the hotel pool, while we hung out and split one of our fancy beers and watched them play. After a little relaxing, we headed back out to see what the Distillery District was all about. This trip would require both subway and streetcar and unfortunately the street car we thought we were supposed to take didn’t appear to be running. Eventually we took a different street car that got us a bit closer and then otherwise hoofed it. All of this figuring out took some time, and so by the time we made it, most of us were pretty ravenous, even with our late lunch.

Parents at the Distillery District

The art throughout the Distillery District was a lot of fun to see. We spent a fair amount of time taking in the sights and letting the kids run a little wild with their cameras. By the time we found a place with suitable menu items for everyone, it was going to be at least a 30 minute wait just to sit down, and even longer to get food in bellies. And so it was that we had dessert for dinner arguable for the third day in a row. We went to a place called Cacao 70. I had hot chocolate, Sean had a shake, Maya had crepes, and Ian had a waffle. You should have seen Ian’s waffle. It was so buried in dessert items, I’m not sure he even dug down far enough to get to actual waffle.

This is Ian’s “waffle”

Indulgently fueled yet again, we took a quick jaunt back to City Hall so Sean could get a street cart hot dog he’d been craving and then we headed back to our hotel for the night.

Day 3 – Kensington Market + food tour, Graffiti Alley, Monkey’s Paw (book store)

By Wednesday, we felt we had earned a bit of a sleep-in. The only thing we booked ahead of time on this trip was a Kensington Market Food tour and that didn’t start till 11. We decided to take it easy and make that our first thing of the day. We ate very lightly for breakfast, suspecting that we’d have a very large lunch to work our way through.

Yonge-Dundas Square

We took a combination subway + streetcar trip to get ourselves over to Kensington Market. The cool thing was that the walk between the subway and streetcar took us past Yonge-Dundas Square, which is something we’d been planning to make a separate trip to at some point, but hadn’t yet worked it in. It’s sort of like Times Square in NYC or Piccadilly Circus in London with its big illuminated billboard screens. It might have been fun to wander around for a while and see more of the architecture of the area, but we did get a good gander of the area even just passing through.

Some people call it the smallest park in Canada

Entering Kensington Market was almost like walking into a different city altogether – the contrast with Yonge-Dundas Square couldn’t have been more stark. Everything was a tangle of color and aroma (mostly good), a hodgepodge of architecture, a staggering wealth of small businesses. We had a little time to kill before our tour was to kick off, so we wandered the streets a bit, soaking up our surroundings. The kids found a little playground  and alternated between playing on the structures there and pestering the local pigeons and sparrows.

The beginning of our food tour

At tour time, we met our guide at Nu Bugel, the end result of a fascinating multi-cultural journey. Bagels are a Jewish-Polish food. These bagels are honey boiled like the Montreal-style bagels, but served in a larger size like the New York-style bagels. To make matters even more interesting, the shop owners are Venezuelan. Multi-cultural bagels, indeed!

Our guide’s name William (unless you didn’t like the tour, then his name was Charles). He had a deep, resonant voice that carried well, even to the back of the pack. He came around to each of us, offering a small sample of both a coconut flavored bagel and a bagel  sandwich stacked with arugula, mustard, horseradish jelly, and smoked trout. He was also kind enough to provide plastic sacks for folks who needed to carry along the things that one kid or the other may not have enjoyed.

They didn’t like everything, but they seemed to enjoy the experience

We had never done a food tour before and didn’t really know what to expect. It just seemed like a fun way to get shepherded around an unfamiliar area and get to try more than the one restaurant we may have decided upon on our own. The kids, especially Ian, seemed to get a big kick out of it.

Our second stop was a Jamaican place called Golden Patty. We were each offered either a spicy or mild Jamaican beef patty, which was first ensconced in a curry crust, and then was sandwiched into some coco bread. This was one of Ian’s favorite things. For Maya, sadly, it did not pass the sniff test. For my part I thought it was divine.

We stopped then at a place called Jumbo Empanadas. Luckily, they had made two different sample size empanadas for us to try, one with some kind of mild white cheese and the other with a sort of meaty picadillo. The kids’ favorite part were the samples of Inca Kola that were supplied to wash it down with. William explained that it looks like Mountain Dew, smells like bubble gum, and taste like banana. He was not wrong.

Canada used to have an interesting rule that only dark drinks could be caffeinated. This meant that yellow sodas like Mountain Dew, which I associate with late nights in the computer lab, had to be decaffeinated. This topic came up because the Inca Kola is both yellow and caffeinated.

Maya and her rice dog

The next place we visited on our tour was Chungchun Rice Dog, which served Korean style hot dogs. The ones we tried were served in a rice coating – corndog-style. Then they were topped with an artful squiggle of ketchup and an optional powdered flavoring of some kind. Sean and I went traditional with ketchup and sugar. Maya tried a powdered garlic thing (which I think she was kinda meh about), and Ian had powdered cheese, which he loved.

Decor at the Fika Cafe

After the rice dogs, we went to a place called Fresco’s Fish and Chips where we had some double-fried cod and some spectacular kale salad. Sean and I wound up getting the kids’ kale salad, which after the debauchery of the past few days was most welcome. We ended our tour at a place called Fika Cafe. It’s a Swedish joint where we enjoyed crispy gingerbread tail-less horses and some iced Rooibos tea.

We walked away from the food tour having had an interesting and enjoyable experience. Our bellies were very full, and I had a bag full of things that the kids hadn’t eaten to snack on later if the need arose.

Maya figures this is how our black cat Nox sees herself

From there we walked over to the famous Graffiti Alley. Get this – Toronto has a Graffiti Management Plan. Here’s what the city’s website has to say: The City of Toronto’s Graffiti Management Plan is a proactive and cooperative approach to managing graffiti vandalism in the public realm while continuously supporting graffiti and street art that adds artistic vibrancy to Toronto’s streets.

We saw brilliant examples of incredibly talented artists having decorated walls and alleyways all over town, but nowhere was it quite so dense as it was in Graffiti Alley. The kids again went nuts with their cameras snapping photos of art both bright and dark, funny and sad, light-hearted and full of political commentary. Our food tour guide had told us there are a couple of Banksy’s around Toronto as well, but we didn’t bother with trying to find them. Our days were full as it was, and there was no shortage of street art to see.

Sometimes traveling with kids is hard

We tried to visit a local record shop, and it seemed pretty amazing, but there weren’t a lot of interesting deals hiding in their bins, as far as we could tell, and our children have not yet developed the patience to spend an hour flipping through bins of records, so we didn’t get to linger long.

The Biblio-mat at Monkey’s Paw

I had read about a neat rare book store called Monkey’s Paw. Sean and I are pretty much always game to visit a book store, but the thing I thought the kids would get a kick out of is that this place had a book vending machine – the Biblio-Mat. It was kind of fun and novel, but the kids were spent by this point. Sean took them outside to let me browse around in the store a little bit before we left.

Other than making a quick jaunt across the street to the Loblaws grocery store to pick up some goodies for snacks and breakfast and to a couple places to secure dinner (the kids’ first non-dessert dinner since we arrived in Toronto), we largely relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Day 4 – Canada’s Wonderland

Thursday was probably the day Maya and Ian were most excited for – Canada’s Wonderland! After a quick breakfast from our grocery store haul the day before, we took our car out the hotel parking lot and drove slightly northwest of the city to Vaughn, Ontario,   to the sprawling amusement park that is Canada’s Wonderland. Sean and I have loved roller coasters forever, and the kids developed a newfound devotion after last winter’s visit to Walt Disney World.

Tacky souvenir photo at Canada’s Wonderland

Ian was about 2.5 inches too short to ride some of the more thrilling attractions, but we had no problem whatsoever filling our day with rides that all four of us could ride. Sean introduced the kids to the concept of “coaster credits.” For each new roller coaster they ride, their tally goes up by one. Ian in particular seems to love keeping track of things, so I think the idea appealed to them.

Canada’s Wonderland itself was unexpectedly pretty for a park full of thrill rides. It is anchored by a manmade mountain, complete with a waterfall crashing over it, and greenery and flowers abound throughout the grounds. Bearing in mind that we weren’t able to partake of the most thrilling rides, the ride queues we were in did a good job of keeping you out of the sun, and seemed to pass reasonably quickly.

Maple leaf

Maya and Ian will tell you it was the best part of their trip, and they wonder why all of our vacations don’t feature amusement parks. For me, it was a fun way to add some variety to our days. Asking the kids to appreciate museums and culture and architecture and history for five days straight may not have been too much to ask, but it was more than I was going to ask.

Waiting to board The Fly

That evening, once we got back to the hotel and got the kids into bed, we were talking through what we wanted to try to achieve during our last full day in Toronto. I looked around at the CN Tower’s website thinking we’d see about buying tickets ahead of time to save time in ticket lines. Alas, all the early timed ticket entries were gone. And there were no tickets left for the special SkyPod level, which is a few hundred feet higher up than the main observation level. We decided that we’d get there as early as we could reasonably manage and see if more options were available on site.

Day 5 – CN Tower, Toronto Islands, Beaver Tails

We let the kids sleep in just a bit after their very busy amusement park day, ate another quick grocery store breakfast, and took the subway all the way down to Union Station to see what kind of chaos we could find at the CN Tower. We were delighted to find that there weren’t heavy crowds, that within minutes we had purchased essentially immediate entry to the tower, and that Skypod tickets would be available for purchase if we wanted them from the observation deck.

CN Tower

The Canadian National (or CN) Tower was the tallest freestanding structure in the world in 1975, when it opened. Of course this is no longer true today, but it is still tall enough to dominate Toronto’s skyline. The tower itself is 553 meters (1815 feet) tall. The main observation level is at 1136 feet above ground, and the views from this floor are superb. There is also glass flooring to look down through. The SkyPod is at 1465 feet, and while the views to me weren’t much different, it allowed us the potential to feel the tower swaying (if we did, it was just barely on our clear, near-windless day), and it let us get a good look at the folks who did the EdgeWalk.

These brave souls are doing the EdgeWalk

The kids are too young to do the EdgeWalk, Sean is uncomfortable with heights, and I wasn’t going to do it if no one else was, so we contented ourselves with watching from the SkyPod. They suit you up and strap you in so you can walk along the outside edge of the tower’s main deck. And it looks like you can turn around to face outward and LEAN OUT over the city. I can’t imagine how it must feel.

Once we’d finished at the CN Tower, we headed over to the Steam Whistle Brewery Biergarten for lunch. We lucked out and only had to wait a few minutes for a nice table inside, so we didn’t really get to linger on the grounds much before we ate. The food was decent – chicken fingers, sausages, a baked pretzel. The only Steam Whistle beer they had on tap was the pilsner, so that’s what I had.

Sean **loves** heights

One of the draws of Steam Whistle is that it’s located inside an old railroad roundhouse. There are old train engines sitting around on the grounds that kids can climb around on, so after lunch, we spent a few pleasant minutes letting them bounce amongst the engines. Then it was time to hoof it over to the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal to catch a ferry over to Toronto Islands.

We took a meandering route over to the terminal so we could walk along the waterfront a bit. The kids chuckled over the mallards who were floating around in the water, many with their heads tucked under a wing, enjoying an afternoon nap.

Toronto skyline

The terminal had ticket counters, but we were greeted by a sign with a QR code that we were to scan and purchase tickets on our phone. All tickets are assumed to be round trip, so we didn’t even need to show tickets on the way back. We took the Ward’s Island Ferry on the way over so we could get some nice views back at the Toronto skyline, the CN Tower prominent amongst the gleaming skyscrapers.

The walk along the southern waterfront was so serene, you forgot you were in a huge city

My original plan had been to wander along the waterfront till we got to the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse, let the kids play a bit on the beach there, and then take the nearest ferry back. As it turns out, the walking distance was pretty far between these things. Sean’s knee had been suffering for all our walking around all over Niagara Falls and throughout the city, and it just wasn’t up to it today. Had we realized a little sooner how long the walks would take us, we might have rented a quad-cycle when we exited the ferry – it would have allowed us to pedal around and see a bit more of the islands than we managed to see.

More skyline

We decided instead that we’d walk to Centre Island Beach, some along the waterfront, some along the main thoroughfare through islands, and let the kids play there instead. I had suggested before we left for our trip that we might find time to let them swim in Lake Ontario, but we warned them its colder than the Gulf Coast swimming they’ve grown accustomed to. Apparently this idea of swimming in one of the Great Lakes took root firmly in their minds. When we got to the beach, we had them take shoes and socks off first to stick their toes in the water. Yup, they decided they were in. I took them to get swim-suited up, but they never really went too far into the water. I’m guessing it was pretty cold. Sean and I, for our part, plopped down in the sand and watched them play for a bit.

Fresh from a Great Lakes swim

After they played for a while, we all took a mosey down the Centre Island Pier to let the kids dry out a bit and to let the grown-ups cool off in the fresh breeze off the lake. Once everyone was again properly clothed, we took the long walk to catch the Centre Island Ferry back to the city. Centre Island is vastly more popular than Ward’s Island. That coupled with the fact that it was now late afternoon and most people were heading back into the city by this point culminated in a very lengthy line at the ferry terminal.

Ferry Boat ride

Astonishingly, after maybe 30 minutes of waiting for it to arrive, we managed to get on the very next ferry boat! Evidently, these things can hold a lot of people. The ride was again pretty. I’m sure a harbor cruise would have been lovely, but for less than $10 a person, we had a couple of nice boat rides across the water.

After disembarking the vessel, we headed straight over to the BeaverTails restaurant to have … Beaver Tails! These are doughnut like pastries that are flat and paddle-shaped like a beaver’s tail. The pastries are loaded up with any of a variety of toppings for your dessert pleasure. For example, Sean had brownies on his. Maya had some kind of Reeses Pieces peanut butter chocolate insanity that we probably shouldn’t have let her finish. Ian had a sort of cookies and cream one. And while I was eyeing the Pou-tail (a beavertail with poutine on it), I settled on the original cinnamon-sugar topped one. These were all tasty enough, and after dealing with Maya’s very messy hands, face, clothes, etc, we headed back for our last subway ride back up to our hotel.

Beaver tail

We saw lots of maple syrup in every souvenir shop near every tourist attraction. In the end, we did buy some syrup to bring back home, but it was in a liter-sized jug from the Loblaws across the street. We went to our now regular Petit Potato for dinner and had some kinda crazy omelet rice creation dubbed “omirice” that in this case came topped with a brightly seasoned pepper steak. We did most of our sorting and packing that evening while the kids relaxed and either played with their iPads or watched TV.

Our flight home on Saturday wasn’t till the evening, so we didn’t rush leaving our hotel. The plan had been to take the 90 or so minute drive back to St Catharines and eat lunch at one of the wineries since we hadn’t gotten to do so on the way up to Toronto earlier in the week. We were on the road before 10:00 and traffic was clunky, but we figured it would thin out once we got away from the main knot of Toronto. Nope. It was pretty horrible for the entire drive. Couple that with a few pitstops for our children and we first abandoned the plan to stop at a winery for lunch, and then we abandoned the backup plan to find an interesting joint in Buffalo to have lunch. (Sean’s comment about Buffalo, “I’m sure there are nice parts of Buffalo, but we didn’t see any of them on this trip.”)

Our Canadian food souvenirs

At least the border crossing back into the United States was faster. This time we crossed in via the Peace Bridge. I don’t know if it’s standard procedure, but our border crossing guard left you with the impression that he wasn’t a fan of Toronto. He grilled us about how long we’d been there, was it our first time, etc. Then he looked at Sean and said, “Why Toronto?” in a tone that suggested he didn’t not see the allure. Sean was caught so off guard that he shrugged and said, “Why not?” Eventually the guy waved us through.

Our flight out of Buffalo was fine. But then, our one hour layover in Chicago grew into a three hour layover. Our late but tolerable 10p arrival in Austin wound up being a 1a arrival. At least this time all our baggage arrived with us. We were all so relieved to be home. It had been a great trip but wow were we tired.

Bye Toronto

We loved our Toronto trip. I would have liked to see either the Art Gallery of Ontario or the Aga Khan Museum, but taking the kids to Canada’s Wonderland and seeing Toronto Islands and letting them swim in Lake Ontario were probably worthy tradeoffs. The city is clean and the people were friendly – there was never a moment we felt unsafe, and we did plenty of wandering around after dark. The subway system was efficient and not redolent of urine or spilled booze, a marked difference from what I’ve come to expect from certain types of mass transit.

The city, for us, was less about seeing particular attractions and more about going to different neighborhoods and wandering around. It’s the kind of place you might like to just live for a few weeks so you could try a different ethnic restaurant every night, make time to go see a play or a ball game, visit the ROM about six more times. The kids are excited that they got to visit a whole different country (wait till we get them to a whole different continent!), and they’re particularly enamored with their Canadian money, which they both agree is much prettier than American money. And we are excited we got to take them there.