Travel Fix: Toronto, Part 2

Considering we went in October and I posted Part 1 and about Niagara an age ago, getting this part up is a little overdue but I’m trying to get back into more regular posting this year after a poor end to 2018. While I eagerly await the chance to plan this year’s adventures, it’s nice to remind myself how much fun seeing a different place is.

After the brief interlude to visit Niagara, we were back in Toronto for the rest of the week. Cue more photos of food, drink, street art and everything in between. I found so much to enjoy about the city and we definitely made the most of our remaining days. It’s photo heavy again just so you’re warned.

Chris’ birthday is the day after mine. Having gotten to be at the Niagara Falls for mine, how did we match that for his birthday? We had tickets to see Toronto Raptors play Cleveland Cavaliers for their NBA season opener! So essentially Wednesday was us distracting ourselves in the daytime before getting excited to go watch basketball.

We kicked off Wednesday with a walk to a nearby mall. It has to be done, right? We found out the CF Toronto Eaton Centre wasn’t too far away so we took a walk down there. This was more of a chill day for us. We looked around a lot of shops and admired the sculptures and features of the mall.

We found a Lindt shop too which had so many flavours I’d never seen before. They have a pick and mix option and I’d be lying if I said we didn’t just go for it. White chocolate candy cane and dark chocolate with sea salt were probably the best flavours I’d not seen before. Catch up UK. For a birthday lunch, we tried out Trattoria Mercatto, the nice Italian we’d seen at the start of our mall exploration. We both had pasta and a cocktail and it was a lovely place to eat. 

Canadian hospitality came into play again that evening. The tickets we had weren’t overly clear as to which gates we could or couldn’t use so we asked somebody who was helpful and also intrigued by our accents. Realising we were first-timers to both the country and the Raptors, he checked our seats number and said he might be able to sort something out. We sort of forgot about it all between going in, getting excited and then the game beginning. Somewhere in the second quarter we saw people going around handing out Raptors tote bags and then we got one. Sure, my name got spelt as Ellen (it happens a lot, surprisingly) but it was a nice bonus. In it there were a few bits to takeaway and the tote bag is cool.

The game itself was great. Over the course of the last two years, I’ve been getting into NBA via Chris and as he adopted the Raptors, so did I. Seeing a live game and experiencing the atmosphere means I’m definitely a fan now. I got myself an awesome Raptors hat and the free t-shirt helped build the atmosphere for the game and also works great as one to wear around the house. Raptors played great and got a fairly comfortable win so that was fun. We had decent seats too, yes, quite high but it made for a great overall view and the action isn’t spoilt at all.

Had we have realised the sheer options for food and drink available, we probably would have joined in. As it happened, we ended up in a McDonalds afterwards. It definitely seemed better than over here and considering it was late and we just wanted food, it worked. Another enjoyable day completed.

Thursday saw us walking quite a long way once again (I stopped checking at 25,000 steps!) and packing a lot in. It was the coldest day of the week too with a bit more wind and a little less blue sky than we’d grown used to. We walked through the more residential area of Cabbagetown on our way to the Distillery District. It gave us the chance to see more of the city again and some of the sights along the way. We probably looked like out of place tourists, but we enjoyed ourselves.

The Distillery District itself is great. They were setting the Christmas festival (rather early) when we were there but I still managed to get a lot of good photos. It’s a more independent part of the city, lots of cool little shops and eateries. It’s a shame it was so cold and windy as it meant we wanted to hide indoors a little more than we usually would. Though that did bring us to some excellent food choices.

Our walk and wandering took us through to lunch time and we found Pure Spirits Oyster House & Grill. I enjoyed one of the strongest mojitos ever and we did the very British thing of having fish and chips. They were good though! We opted to wander a little more before dessert as we were keen to check out a place I’d researched. Cocoa is pretty much what it says and we had a crazy chocolate cake that comes in a sundae glass. It’s delicious cake layered with cream and sauce and it was incredibly filling, but pretty great.

It’s a shame it was a little cold as I would have liked to have spent more time in this area. If you had money and the weather on your side, there’s boutiques, art galleries and stuff galore. It’s clearly an area they’re trying to regenerate and although it’s further out than most of the other tourist attractions, it’s worth it. You don’t have to do the long walk that we did but with halloween on, i rather enjoyed seeing how people had decorated their houses and the area.

After absolutely stuffing our faces we needed to walk to burn it off and hurray, the sun came out! We walked back from the Distillery District to the CN Tower. Neither of us are the biggest fan of heights but it’s still worth doing. Not cheap but an impressive feat. Warning for those who do struggle with heights, you can see out of the lifts as you go up and down! There’s also a glass floor and spectacular views of the city. I probably should have taken more photographs but I was a bit too blown away. Toronto looks great from up high.

Somewhere I’d had ear marked since before we booked the trip was The Lockhart; a Harry Potter themed bar. Logistically it was a little challenging, pretty far out and a twenty minute walk from the nearest Metro stop. It was completely worth it though! We both like Harry Potter but I don’t think we would be considered super fans, but I loved it. So many little references or touches. The bar itself is tiny. I think the area is quite tailored to students as that was the average demographic in there. Luckily we were there quite early so getting a table was easy. The cocktails are strong and many are themed.

We started with the 100% alcoholic Gin Weasley, garnished with an orange peel heart. It was a nice one to begin with, and super strong, but I fancied trying something bigger and more of a showpiece. They do sharing cocktails and we opted for The Marauder. It contains Jägermeister, Appleton Estate Rum, Bacardi Superior, Bols Apricot, Gosling’s Black Seal Rum, Wray and Nephew Overproof, Pineapple Juice, Hibiscus Syrup, Lemon Juice, Angostura all served in a giant deer head and set on fire! Strong but tasty and served us both well. It comes equipped with a serving spoon which gets more challenging to use the more you’ve drank.

We finished our visit to The Lockhart off with a final cocktail before feeling we needed some food to balance it out. I opted for The Botanist and Chris had the Shacklebolt which meant more fire. There’s plenty to look at in the bar. The toilets in there are also worth a visit. The walls are blackboards and there’s chalk available so as you can imagine there are quotes and thoughts plastered. I tried to get a photograph but due to the lighting (or maybe the drinking?) it came out very poorly.

Our last day ended up being a little bit of a write off unfortunately. The only flight on our airline (aka an affordable flight) was the 10pm each night out of Toronto. Due to Chris’ working hours, this meant we had to leave on Friday night to land on Saturday in the UK. I woke that morning with some sort of cold/flu type thing and felt awful. We also quickly realised that without being able to track down the hotel office, we’d have to lug our suitcase with us all day. One lie in and hearty breakfast later (I guess it was more brunch at a locals place near the museum), we found ourselves a little limited on what to do. With bag searches in operation everywhere, it’s not a good place to be stuck with your large suitcase.

I love walking around a city so we decided to walk from the museum to Casa Loma. Toronto’s castle that I’d really wanted to see is a little far out but worth the trip. It was another sunny day and the walk took us through different areas again, seeing more nice things and plenty of Halloween decorated houses (yay!). Unfortunately we hit the same issue at the castle as at the museum so it was an outside view only. I did find Subway cookies though to stave off how ill I was and they are better in Toronto than here in the UK! The castle is incredible and they sound like they do great things around this time of year. If we get to go back, I’ve love to go inside.

With a couple of hours left to kill before we needed to be at the airport, and a very sick me, we went to a bar we’d passed on the way that looked nice and chilled out with our last cocktails of the trip. Like every bar, it was showing sports and the staff were really nice so it was easy to kill time in there. What I would say is that we wish we’d eaten a little more before heading to the airport. Maybe it was just our terminal but the choice of food pre-security was non-existent and post-security was just overpriced and not great. The only food disappointment of the whole trip really.

Toronto in general though really impressed me and I’d happily go back as there’s plenty we didn’t get time to do. With how easy to use and cheap the trains are, we’d probably do some more trips. In warmer weather there’s always islands you can catch boats to and a beach, so the options are endless. Think London but much cleaner, friendlier and less stressful. That’s how I’d describe Toronto. I loved it!