3 days in Beautiful Toronto

One could describe Toronto as very Canadian: it is nice, clean and friendly

From Montreal we headed out on our first long car trip with the whole family. 7 hours with three small children is no easy task, however, they fortunately acted like angels the whole way. A couple of downloaded movies helped! Our destination was Beaverton Ontario but on the way we stopped at Upper Canada Village, a heritage park near Morrisburg Ontario. The village is an exact reconstruction on a 19th century village in Upper Canada with all of the towns people living exactly as people had lived back then. It was a great experience for all of us to see all aspects of an antique villages life such as the saw mill, the farm yard, a seamstress’ shop, the bakery, the doctor’s office and so on. A highly recommended stop on the long drive from Montreal to Toronto.

We stayed two days in Beaverton Ontario on Lake Simcoe about an hour North of Toronto. This is the town that Edouard’s Mother’s family is from and where Edouard spend most of his summers growing up so it has a very special significance to him. Beaverton is a very small farming town with its own special charm and due to the fact that it lies on the Eastern shore of Lake Simcoe, attracts many Toronto residents on the weekends and over the summer. We toured the town, had a very nice family reunion and spent time in the lake and the pool.

Toronto

From the small town of Beaverton we drove to the large megalopolis of Toronto. One does not appreciate the size of Toronto because it has a very manageable scale with the only tall building being in the centre of town. However, it is the fourth largest North American city by population (after Mexico City, New York and LA).

One could describe Toronto as very Canadian: it is nice, clean and friendly. However, it still lacks a bit of grunge charm and edginess one would find in New York, LA, or London.

The city is very pedestrian friendly with many green spaces and lies on the shore of Lake Ontario. We spent our days walking everywhere. We visited the CN Tower (the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemishpere) and the Aquarium (a must see).

Of the different neighbourhoods we visited, I really liked Yorkville where we had our apartment. Quaint shops, very nice restaurants and bars and very centrally located. I wasn’t so keen on the Annex which had been highly recommended to us. It seemed very run down, packed with fast food restaurants and cheap bars. On the other hand, I very much liked the Kensington Market area with its bohemian shops, trendy bars, vintage boutiques and arts spaces. Close by we found a small street called Graffiti Alley. There is high quality graffiti all over Toronto but in this particular area the art form takes on a new meaning. It was a perfect backdrop for many pictures of the kids. We were very lucky to be invited to dinner at our friend’s house up in York Mills so we were able to see one of the nicer residential areas with beautiful tree lined roads and large single family homes.

I liked Toronto A LOT, it's a very welcoming city. Although, I am very happy to have visited it in September when the weather was great, I don't think I would ever like to be there in winter. I heard the cold there is cruel. (I have enough of it in London, thanks!)