Toronto Sightseeing and Home

On Wednesday, September 26 we had all day to tour Toronto so we checked out of our hotel and left our bags with the doorman to hold until we returned.

We boarded the nearest "hop on- hop off" tour bus and  rode the complete circuit to get our bearings.

We listened to the on-board narrator who spoke in Canadian English,  but everyone was given ear phones to listen to recordings in any of the nine other languages shown by their flags here.

We thought this dog fountain was rather unusual.  They are after the gold bone at the top.  There are 27 cast iron dogs and one scared cat!

We noticed this truck may have been driving a bit too fast in this upstairs parking lot!  Note the CN Tower on the left.

This street sweeper was one of the reasons that the city of Toronto is so clean.

There were numerous outside cafes like this around the city.

Like good tourists, we hopped off at the CN Tower for a tour.

The Tower is 1815 feet high.  The elevator only takes 48 seconds to get us up to the 360 degree viewing area.

For a few extra dollars a daring person can go up to the next level for special handling to engage in the "Edge Walk.

Here is a picture of what you get. They put you in a harness and let you go out on the ledge for excitement.  You can even lean over.

Bill decided that there was not enough money in the city to get him to do that!  Scaryyyyy!

The views from the CN Tower were excellent.  Here we are looking down at the sky scrappers.

This is looking to the southwest over Lake Ontario.

Wednesday evening we retrieved our bags and got on a "Niagara Airbus" transport limo for a two-hour ride to Buffalo New York.  We were the only ones in the car so the driver took us to Niagara Falls to see it at night from the Canadian side.  He drove us through U.S. customs and dropped us off in Buffalo.

The Buffalo train station was much smaller than what we had been seeing in Chicago, Vancouver, and Toronto.  We boarded the Amtrak "Lake Shore Limited" after midnight for our sleeper birth on a ride back to Chicago where we arrived around noon on Thursday.  Finally, we got on our last train, the "Wolverine", for our final leg to Kalamazoo.

We arrived back in Frederic around 11 PM after retrieving our old bird in Lansing.  We had an excellent vacation by rail.  If you can see the orange line on the map above it is a rough path of the train routes we took.  We traveled almost 7000 miles by rail and got pretty good at sleeping on a moving train.  If you ever need any advice on North American train travel don't hesitate to ask, because we just might have the answer.

It was fun!

🚂

A Few Days (and miles) Later and We are back on the Grid

It is now Tuesday and we are in our hotel in Toronto.

Our Via Rail train did not have wi-fi and the few larger cities we rode through gave us only short bursts of cell tower usage in Western Canada.  Therefore, we could not blog as we like to do when we travel.  So,  we will go back a few days and try to catch up....

The Rocky Mountains gave way to the open plains of Alberta and Manitoba after we stopped at Edmonton.

We got spoiled with our three meals a day in the dining car.  We both loved the white tablecloths as well as the cloth napkins.  The food was delicious.  We ate with a different couple each meal.  Most of the train passengers were from England, Canada, Australia, Germany and China.  We met only one other couple from the USA (California) and one lady from Michigan.

Our train had 30 cars that included three engines, two dining cars and three dome viewing cars.

We saw this herd of buffalo outside of Winnipeg.  The fact that they were surrounded by a wire fence made us think that it was not a wild migrating herd!  We were surprised to see snow on the ground from Jasper clear past Winnipeg. 

We saw many dwarf trees like these above that reminded us of the Tundra in Alaska.  All the PA announcements on the train were in English then repeated in French.  My mother would have enjoyed hearing that.

On Tuesday around noon we disembarked the Canadian train and checked into the Hilton Toronto.  With our change of schedule we were moved here from our previous hotel.  The white car on the right is a Maserati which are rare in Frederic where we live.

This is the view from our 28th floor room.  The hotel has 32 floors.

We plan to do some sightseeing tomorrow, so today we explored some shops that Karen had to check out here in Toronto.  She finally decided that she really did not have room to pack a new winter coat.

The public transportation in Toronto is modern and efficient.  Here is one of their trolleys.

We found this Broadway theater but do not have the time to catch a show.

We plan to see the CN Tower tomorrow with a much closer look than this.

It is great to be back on line.

☎

On Friday We Catch our Train and Head East

The Vancouver Pacific Central train station was very busy on Friday when we arrived around 10 AM and we saw that security measures were being taken.

We left at noon and soon saw these Blueberry bushes outside Vancouver.

It wasn't long before we started to enter the Canadian Rockies.

There are four dome cars on the train and they became popular places to sit as we ran into snow.

Saturday morning we arrived in Jasper where many passengers got off.

Outside of Jasper Bill got this shot of a Bull Elk.

The scenery in the Canadian Rockies is wonderful.

Each morning Via Rail gave us a champagne talk.

This is the stairway to one of the dome cars. 

There is no wi-fi on the train so we only hit occasional cell towers to get on the internet. Sunday morning and we are now stopped in Saskatoon, Saskarchewan.  We have seen snow all the way from Jasper which the locals say is unusual this time of year.  Because of heavy freight traffic our train is running about six hours behind schedule.  Oh well - we will just go sit in the dome car and watch the Canadian scenery go by, as it is warm on our train.

🚞

A Rainy Thursday in Vancouver

The skies were cloudy and dark in the morning so we decided to stay closer to the hotel but still wanted to see what the downtown had to offer.

We wandered into a really upscale mall where Karen enjoyed looking at the newest fashions.

This Apple store drew our attention as Karen will soon be needing a new phone.

But by late morning the rain started so after lunch we headed back to the hotel to catch up on a few chores and relax.

Directly across the street from our hotel we found this high-end grocery store that was great for any needed supplies.

In the afternoon Bill turned on the Canadian TV only to find this mysterious woman on channel 2.

Whoever it was - sure knew her way around the laundry room!

And for anyone who thought we were kidding about almost being assigned to Trump Tower --

We realized that the tall high-rise tower directly across the street had this name at the bottom.

So there....

Today we catch the noon train to Toronto.

We hope.

🏢

Soaking Up Some Sights in Vancouver

The weather was cool and clear on Wednesday so we headed outside to look around the city.

This is what our hotel looks like.  Notice the small balconies on the near corner.  Bill found them to be rather scary with just a small railing for comfort support.  However, Karen pointed out that they were great to walk out on in the morning to feel what the weather was like.

We walked in Stanley Park where we thought it was an outstanding idea of have separate lanes for pedestrians and bike traffic.

We started out on this tour that you see above to get our bearings.

We want to compliment the horses for a job well done.  We were told that the draft horses came from an Amish farm in Iowa, and the younger horse was bothered whenever he got close to the ocean as it seemed to baffle him.

We saw this "Girl In A Wet Suit" in the harbor.  She was modeled after the mermaid in the Copenhagen Harbor in Europe.

Of course out here we saw totem poles.

Stanley park had beautiful flowers in many locations.  We were told the park is the third biggest municipal park in North America.

After lunch we visited the Vancouver Aquarium that had stunning displays to sea creatures like these Jellyfish above.  They looked like floating fungus.

These two giant sea lions reminded us of Sumo Wrestlers as they tried to push each other off the platforms.

The displays were bright and probably the best we have ever seen.

We believe we made the best of one of our extra days in Vancouver.  It is a great city to visit.

🏬