NY/Canada Trip: Part 2: Toronto

View of part of Toronto's skyline. I'm still quite partial to the NYC skyline but this isn't bad either. Most of the tall buildings are apartments, the big dome of course is the baseball stadium and the tall, skinny one is the CN Tower. We caught this shot on the boat ride you see us on in the Toronto sky.

Fun Views L-R: Looking up from the bottom of the staircase in the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). This museum had several really good works, lots of decent works and tons and tons of miniature carvings, bottles, etc. It reminded me actually of the PU Art Museum. Next, the first skyscraper in Toronto--that small red brick building in the foreground. Everyone was nervous to go on the top floor (4 floors) because they thought it was going to blow over, this was back before 1900. I think it's fun to hear that now when it's pictured sandwiched between two modern day skyscrapers many times its height. Moving on, Looking down approx. 1000 feet from the first look-out level of the CN Tower. The tower has a glass floor in one area that is a little unnerving to step out onto so far above ground. Toronto boats the CN tower being the tallest tower in the world--if you are using the official dictionary meaning of the word tower. The family in the bottom pic boasts being the cutest bunch of tourists in Toronto. Little J could have spent all day in the tower watching the planes land and take off from the island airport and the baseball stadium (literally next door to the tower) open and close it's roof. Toronto also boasts having the first working roof over their baseball stadium and reportedly at the first baseball game with the roof the crowd began to chant "Open the roof! Open the roof!" and unfortunately a thunderstorm had moved in and everyone naturally began to chant "Close the roof! Close the roof!" but it was too late and everyone got soaked. If I remember right it takes 20 min. for the roof to close. The tower offered nice views of the city. Toronto has many laws to protect the historic buildings and we didn't get a pic, but recently one of the many old buildings completely collapsed on one side--luckily no one got hurt. We went right by it on our double-decker bus tour and got to see the ruins if you will.

CASA LOMA!! This was my favorite stop in Toronto! This is the home, yes home, of an extremely wealthy man, Sir Henry Pellatt, who loved castles and was fortunate enough to have a monopoly on Ontario electricity for a time so had vast amounts of wealth to build it in the early 1900s. He toured for a year (a year!) around Europe with his architect so they could figure out exactly how they wanted their castle to lay out and with which design elements. The Pellatt's were some of the few to be rich enough for things such as indoor bathrooms--note the plural even--an underground tunnel to their immense stable, turrets, lovely gardens, secret passageways, room for 1,800 bottles of wine, large servants quarters, light bulbs and telephones galore and a lovely conservatory complete with personal horticulturists. It's ridiculous how much money this man spent on his dream home, which is I guess why the government eventually took his monopoly away forcing him to not be able to complete his underground, indoor pool and even to lose his castle. Once it was a historic site for touring he was the first visitor. The tour was nice because it was not guided so you could go at your own pace but we had these electronic devices to tell us all the secrets of the castle. We even took the long, spiraling staircase to the top of one of the turrets. The Kennedy's happened to be filming there at the time and many movies have been partially staged there. Pretty cool castle!

Our day in Toronto was HOT, HOT, HOT so we cooled off in the pool. Our hotel had this awesome 2-story water slide and we got all the kids to go down. The girls in particular could not get enough of it. Little A even went all by herself with her daddy at the bottom to catch her. That's our little water baby!! We saw many, many elegant swans on our boat ride. Love those birds!