Montréal

For Thanksgiving, we took a trip to Montréal.  If you look at a map of Canada, Montréal looks quite close to Toronto - that is until you check out the scale!  It's actually about 350 miles away and it took about 8hrs on the Greyhound!

We set off early Saturday morning and were at our hotel at the foot of Mont Royal by mid-afternoon.  Our stay was short but we packed a lot in.  

We had dinner the first night in Old Montréal - the reason I'm wearing a sleeveless top is that we were experiencing an Indian Summer - it was about 25 degrees during the day!

Tasting the local beer in Old Montréal

 The next day we got up early ready for a full day of exploring.  With the Frommers guide downloaded to David's Kobo eReader (shameless plug), we hit the streets of Old Montréal on a walking tour.  

We wandered through the cobbled streets taking in some of the oldest architecture in Canada.  Here are the highlights of the morning:

Place d'Armes

La Maison Pierre du Calvet

View from the top of Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours

Place Jacques-Cartier with Nelson's Column at the top. 

Old Fire Station - now the Centre d'histoire de Montréal

 After our walking tour we headed down to the water and saw this sight - yes this is housing!  Built as a housing complex to show off for the World's fair in 1967.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67

Habitat 67

 As the light dwindled we headed towards Mont Royal - the hill that overlooks the city, and where Montréal gets its name.  We started off at Lac aux Castors and waked through the park to the top of the hill.

Lac aux Castors as the sun began to set

View from the top of Mont Royal

 As we descended the hill, we started to get hungry, so went for some Poutine at PatatiPatata (recommended by a Montréal colleague of David's).  Poutine is basically fries topped with cheese curds and gravy.  Omnomnom!

For dinner (yes, we now call it dinner, not tea...) we dined at Schwarz's Hebrew Delicatessen renound for its Montréal smoked meat. Needless to say, we loved the food and David bought yet another T-Shirt for his collection! 

And that was our wee trip to Montréal.  More updates to come soon.

September 2011

Again, it's been a while - time is flying and we've been busy but we have had a great summer!

Here's a update for what we got up to in September.  October and November to come soon -watch this space.

In early September we went to the Cabbagetown Festival which started off with a pancake breakfast at Riverdale Farm (city farm). Breakfast on a farm?  We're in! We cycled up there on a very warm day to see what Cabbagetown had to offer.

Cabbage town gets its name from the vegetables the Irish immigrants used to grow in their front gardens - the cabbages probably stuck out more than the other veggies.  The houses in Cabbage Town are some of the oldest in the city and Cabbagetown is  "the largest continuous area of preserved Victorian housing in all of North America".  You wouldn't know this lovely historic area was there as it's so close to the Downtown area. http://www.oldcabbagetown.com/

After our breakfast we wandered round the craft fair and then went on a historic homes tour. Here are some of the gorgeous houses we saw!

There was also a massive street festival where we took in some lovely food, cold pop and street performers.

We did a lot of cycling in September, including cycling to work. One of our trips was along the water front to the Beaches.  We cycled along a stretch of the Martin Goodman trail on the water front and enjoyed the fresh air.

One night, we were watching some Youtube clips of Bill Bailey and we Googled him -only to find out that he was playing in Toronto in the next few weeks.  We went straight to Ticketmaster and bought 2 of the last tickets - who wouldn't!  The gig was awesome - we laughed till it hurt!  I was quite a small venue which was nice.

So, as the summer comes to a close, so does the Blue Jays season.  We went to see the last game of the season which went into 12 innings!  (There are usually 9).  We got great seats with a great view of what was going on.  After a while, we even started to understand the game..... David enjoyed booing the opposition with the crowd.

CN tower from the Sky Dome (Blue Jays stadium)

José Bautista - the Blue Jays star player

As the month came to an end, Kate had to say goodbye to a Linda, a Dutch friend who decided to return to The Netherlands.  :-(

Before Linda left, we did a bit of touristing (based around locations for good beer).  

These pictures are of famous people made out of everyday objects and were in a gallery in the Distillery District. http://www.thedistillerydistrict.com/

Bob Marley made out of Rubix Cubes!

Marilyn Monroe made out of cotton reels!

More to come.  Hope you enjoyed our little update.

Algonquin park

Over Labour Day weekend we hired a car (Dodge Calibre) and headed to Algonquin Park (http://www.algonquinpark.on.ca/).  It's a massive Provincial Park about a four hour drive north of Toronto.  We set off really early Saturday morning to avoid the traffic and arrived before lunch. We were booked into a lovely campsite on the banks of Pog Lake.

Our campsite, complete with our new little tent

Unpacking

After setting up camp and cooking lunch we went for a bike ride along the Old Railway Bike Trail that ran along past our campsite.  We cycled about 13km in total and would have gone further had it not been for the heat and humidity.

Cycle ride along Old Railway Bike Trail

After our ride, we spent some time relaxing on the banks of the Lake of Two Rivers, taking in the scenery and inhaling the country air.

Lake of Two Rivers

Enjoying the fresh air

That night it absolutely chucked it down!  Our wee tent held up quite well considering, but we did miss our Vango.  In the morning, we finally decided to brave the rain and went for a shower.  By the time we were done the rain had calmed down and we drove over to Lake Opeongo to see about renting a canoe.  We were a little unsure due to the weather but as we cooked breakfast on the dock, the sun started to peak through and we decided to risk it.  Really glad we did as the weather improved over the next few hours as we canoed around the lake.

Chilling out on Lake Opeongo

We stopped for lunch on Bates Island and got the Trangia out.  No boring sandwiches for us!

Lunch on Bates Island

Obligatory couple shot

Taking in the scenery

The journey back was quite a bit harder as the wind had picked up and the water got a little choppy.  We made it back without falling in - score!

That night we got a roaring fire going as the temperature dropped and cooked some humble corned beef hash.

Each night we had to make sure that all food and toiletries were stored in the car as there was a resident hungry bear!

Kate was scared to get up in the night!

We were actually quite sad to return home on Monday and would have loved to stay a little longer.  We do however, plan to head back up in a few weeks to see the autumn colours.

July & August 2011 - The summer

So here's a very belated update to let you know what we've been up to over the summer.  We've had a brilliant summer with a constant temperature of over 30 and a high of 49!  We've been to most festivals that Toronto has to offer; including the Festival of India, Jazzfest, Caribana, Taste the Danforth, Buskerfest and the Canadian National Exhibition.  Here are the highlights:

We kicked off the summer by spending Canada Day up in Caledon with the Ratcliffe clan.  A day complete with red floral garlands, Canadian flags and a BBQ - true Canadian style!

 A little while later Tejneet, a friend of David's from university, was in town on a business trip & we met up for lunch downtown on a rooftop patio, followed by a walk along the boardwalk down at the Beaches where we saw someone balancing stones in very high piles (take a look at the picture below) and a taste of the Beaches Jazzfest.

Kate & Tej on the patio

Stone balancing on the beach

Jazzfest

Then was time for our first house guest to arrive!  Megan, a friend from Leeds was visiting her Grandma in Toronto and spent the weekend with us.  We went to Caribana with Molly & Patrick whilst she was here.  This is a festival of the Caribbean complete with a parade of amazing costumes, crazy music and lots of booty shaking!

Molly & Patrick at Caribana

The Parade's just getting started!

Some of the costumes were so big they needed wheels!  This is a costume for one person!

Enormous Costume!

Ornate outfit

The next day we headed to the Distillery district for lunch and then walked to Ed's ice-cream parlour (http://edsrealscoop.com/default.aspx).  We have never tasted ice-cream like it!  Megan couldn't make up her mind so she went for four flavours in one enormous waffle cone - omnomnom... 

Megan eating four flavours of Ed's ice-cream!

But alas, the visit had to come to an end and we were very sad to see her go.  :-(

Time to say goodbye.  :-(

Now, on to August.  As our 3rd anniversary fell on a day when Kate was teaching and David was at his French course, we celebrated the weekend before.  We went to Yorkville, a very swanky area of town, for a lovely meal followed by a walking tour of the area and finishing with people watching whilst drinking a refreshing ice-tea on the 650-ton Canadian Shield rock in Yorkville park.  Our 1st anniversary was celebrated in Belgium, the 2nd in Scotland and the 3rd in Canada.  Suggestions for the 4th on a postcard...

Sassafraz - a trendy café in Yorkville

David in Yorkville park

Anniversary meal

Whilst on our walking tour, we came across some quite random sculptures, including an enormous white inflatable horse (if you can call that a sculpture) and this cow driving a tractor.

A cow driving a Massey Ferguson

Next was Buskerfest.  This is a festival in our neighbourhood where street artists from all over the world gather together in aid of Epilepsy Toronto.  Among the acts there we took in a magic show where David got picked on to take part and a sword-swallower who also juggles knives blindfolded on top of a 10 foot unicycle!  

David taking part in a magic show at Buskerfest

Street artitst - nutter!

Towards the end of the month we went to the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE).  It's hard to explain what this was, but here goes - an enormous varied exhibition with shows, a fairground and an enormous foodhall.

Canadian National Exhibition

We started off the day with a visit to the cat show - OMG!  These people are crazy (and also quite scary)!  Here is an example of how one owner had decorated her cats, their cage and even the table it was on.  Words fail me!

There are no appropriate words to describe this!

Next we walked around the international trade section before heading to see the Superdogs show.  Here we saw dogs race over obstacle courses, dance and do various other tricks.  David laughed joyfully like a small child...  

The Midway (fairground) at the CNE

After taking a wander through the Midway (fairground), we took in another show - an ice-skating and gymnastic Broadway extravaganza!  It was a bizarre but strangely entertaining show.

From here we made our way to the immense foodhall - we have never seen so much variety under one roof.  Below is a picture of the most talked about item of food for sale!  Gluttony has taken on a whole new meaning!

Yes, you read it right....

And just when you think the day could not get any more bizarre, we went to see a human cannonball!  Here he is, getting into the cannon.  

Human cannonball!

We also took in some sand sculptures and an indoor farm.  

Sand Sculpture

Hungry animals

Needless to say, this was possibly one of the most random days that we have ever had!  

Thanks for taking time to read this section of our blog.  We will update again in the next few days with what we've been up to this month so far.

Hope you had a good summer too.