Road Nomad 19 -- Toronto

We are at the Miami International Airport, Concourse D. You all know I am not necessarily

a fan of MIA, I fly from neighboring Ft.

Lauderdale whenever possible but Concourse D is one of the nicer ones.

It serves as a hub to American Airlines.

And yes this time I am also traveling with my parents.

Destination: Toronto

We are airborne, once again, and nope, we're not true road nomad yet.

We are still flying to places.

We get a nice view of Downtown Miami this time.

Today, we are traveling to the great land of Canada.

A few hours later we land at the Toronto Pearson International Airport.

We take a taxi to our hotel.

We wake up at the Toronto Metropolitan Hotel.

Many buildings around the city seem to have these rooftop gardens.

Our hotel is impeccably located on Chestnut Street, a few blocks away from the Nathan

Phillips Square.

You can barely see it from the room.

We are walking on Dundas Street looking for some breakfast.

We walk the short distance.

The circular structure to our left is City Hall.

And we arrive to the square; the sundial sits at the Peace Garden, a memorial to the Hiroshima

atomic bomb.

City Hall is actually more like a double semicircle structure.

We are at Nathan Phillips Square here in Toronto, behind is the City Hall, and they are having

some kind of festival today.

Yes, it appears they are going to have some kind of Pilipino Festival later on.

This reflecting pool is actually a skating rink during the winter, which I hear is most

of the year in this latitude.

The picturesque building with the clock tower is the Old City Hall, which dates back to

1899.

We walk along its side on Albert Street towards the Eaton Centre.

The Eaton Centre is supposedly one of Toronto's main tourist attractions, with 330 stores

and restaurants, but lets face it, besides the pretty glass roof, it is nothing more

than an oversized shopping mall.

Moving right along.

We exit the Eaton Centre, and walk north on Yonge Street, towards the Dundas Yonge Square

in order the take the subway towards the Harbour Front which is where we're going.

According to the Guinnes Book Of World Records, Yonge Street is considered the longest one

in the world at over 1000 miles.

Younge Dundas Square is Toronto's version of Times Square, if you will, with all the

neon and LED signs.

The subway line is undergoing construction, but they have this special bus line running

along its route.

We ride on the bus going south.

We get off by Allen Lambert Galleria, part of the Boorkfield Place office complex, it's

often called the Crystal Cathedral of Commerce because of its unique architecture.

It was designed by Spanish Architect Santiago Calatrava.

We are walking on the Allan Lambert Galleria towards Bay Street, and then we are going

to take the ferry to Toronto Island.

Yeah, these Canadians have some cool garbage cans.

The also have some great architecture in the city.

We continue walking south towards the Harbour Front, under the railroad tracks.

It is our intention to catch the Ferry to the Toronto Islands from this Harbour Square

Park.

We arrive at the terminal.

The round trip costs $7 for adults with discounts for seniors and juniors.

We are taking the Centre Island ferry.

Along the way we enjoy this great views of the Toronto skyline, which is really the main

reason we took the ferry.

We are riding on the ferry to Centre Island, Toronto Island.

And we have arrived.

The Toronto islands are like an oasis in the big city with this lush vegetation, the pollen

floating around in the late spring.

I must say I'm impressed.

I heard about it first in the Amateur Traveler podcast, and then read about in the Moon Guide

to Ontario, but I must say this is a really cool place.

They have an amusement park, a duck pond, a farm, a marina and even a beach, all kinds

of activities for the family.

Unfortunately our time here is limited.

After all we only came here for the view, right?

We cross over this tiny bridge onto Olympic Island for this other great view of the Toronto's

skyline, even with a swan.

Feels like we ought to stay here all day but we must get back on the ferry as other points

of interest await us.

We are now returning to Toronto.

Toronto has a great public transit system.

Besides the subways and the busses, the have an extensive network of these trolleys.

We get off by the Saint James cathedral to change trolleys.

We are going towards the Distillery District for lunch.

The distillery district was once home to the largest distillery in the world, around the

mid 1800.

Nowadays is a historic site with many art galleries, restaurants and shops.

We eat at the famous Mill Street Brewery.

And they actually brew their own excellent beer, and we tried the Canadian delicacy,

the poutine.

It is basically French fries with cheese turds, gravy and meat and but it is amazingly delicious.

Moving along, we walk towards the trolley stop to go back.

They have these bicycles for rent all around the city.

And our ride finally arrives.

This morning we bought a 24-hour family pass, which is good for all forms of public transit.

Very convenient and economic as well.

We are back by the Eaton Center and Yonge Dundas Square.

There is some kind of protest going on about human rights in Iran.

It is a very vibrant city center, as you can see.

We take another trolley towards the hotel, which is only a couple of blocks away, but

we don't feel like walking and since we have the day pass, the ride is free.

We are going to take a break and then go back out.

Later in the day we walk to University Avenue.

Here we take a subway that will get us near the CN Tower.

One thing about Canadians, they are the nicest people in the world, but the ones we met had

no sense of distance or directions.

They went out of their way to walk with us and tell us where to go, but they didn't really

know how to get there.

Eventually we did find the CN Tower...

using the iPhone.

While we wait for the elevators, we get to see these informational videos about the CN

Tower.

Welcome to the CN Tower.

Your views are going to be in front and to the side and underneath your feet as well

once we get going.

We'll be travelling at a speed of 22 kilometers per hour or 15 miles per hour.

It take just 58 second to get to the observation level.

I'm gonna walk across the glass floor.

Oh my God.

This is really scary.

We hang out at the main pod, which is at an altitude of 342 meters or 1122 ft.

We have finaly made it to the Skypod.

The Skypod is the highest point you can go on this CN Tower.

As you can see we are really, really, really high.

The skypod sits at a staggering 446 meters or 1465 ft.

On a clear day you can see Niagara on the other side of the lake.

The CN Tower held the record for the tallest freestanding structure for over 30 years,

until Dubai's Burj Khalifa surpassed it, in 2007.

As night falls the lights are turned on and it is almost time for us to go.

Now I'm green.

We're saying good by to the CN Tower.

Come on, change color.

And now I don't know what color I am.

Down we go and with that we turn in for the night.

We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

In the morning we go back to the Eaton Center to pick up out rental car from the Thrifty

office, which apparently doesn't open until 10.

Since we have an hour to kill we decide to walk around a little bit.

In Canada they have really cool mailboxes.

We pass by the Metropolitan United Church.

We also find out why the city looks so clean all the time.

We also pass by this canine gourmet festival on the way to the Saint Lawrence Market, which

is unfortunately closed on Sunday.

We see the Saint James Cathedral one more time, and an entrance to the famous PATH underground

city, and we once again we pass by the Old City Hall... on the way back to a deserted

Eaton Center.

Guess what.

Our car is ready!

We go pick up my parents at the Metropolitan Hotel, and we depart on our red Dodge Caliber,

not my favorite vehicle in the world, let me tell you, but that's what they consider

full size I guess.

Not an outstanding product let me tell you.

We turn left, or west on Dundas Street towards Chinatown.

To our left, this building is the Art Gallery of Ontario, with its newly constructed facade.

We continue west on Dundas Street, into the heart of Chinatown, which dates back to the

19th century and is one of the largest ones in North America, and one of the several Chinatowns

on the city.

We are by the corner of Spadina and Dundas.

If we were to continue northwest we would encounter Kensington Market, which is a very

interesting neighborhood, but we will save that for another trip.

Right now we are driving towards Casa Loma.

We drive north on Spadina Avenue, crossing College Street.

The Knox College is the building in the middle of the traffic circle, and it houses offices

for the University of Toronto.

The actual University is to our right.

Let's make sure the camera is on, shall we.

Yes it is, obviously.

After Bloor Street, Spadina Venue turns into Spadina Road.

This neighborhood is called the Annex, and it is an upper middle class neighborhood,

very nice.

We turn left on McPherson Avenue and right on Kendal.

And we finally arrive at arrive at Casa Loma.

Casa Loma is Spanish for Hill House.

The building was constructed in 1914 as a Gothic Revival style house, originally the

residence Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, a famous Canadian dude, famous mainly for this house

and for bringing hydroelectric power to Toronto.

This is one of Toronto's most popular tourist attractions.

We don't have time to go inside though, because today we are going to Niagara Falls, a much

more coveted attraction if you ask me, and time is of the essence, so with that we are

going to say goodbye to Toronto for now.

Our next video will be... you guessed it Niagara Falls.

Meanwhile see you on the road.

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I am Robert Morales, your host signing off.

See ya.