Archive for January, 2009

(I had jotted down the below post a few days before we were to leave Toronto… but never got around to putting the final touches and actually posting it! So, it’s a little dated… but none the less, here it is now )

Well it’s been close to three weeks and we’re at the lag end of our holiday here at Toronto. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone! This is by far the longest holiday I have ever taken ( I got 2 weeks off for my wedding!) and zooooop (!) it’s over.

Yeah, I’m heartbroken over leaving Rhea and everyone else here behind… but the bright side is that finally I will be able to feel some sun and warm on my face. I mean, for us the cold and snow was great, but after a bit, I can see why everyone who sees it so much here isn’t so enthusiastic about it. It looks pretty and all, but it’s windy, cold and wet! You have spend upto 15 mins putting on a series of warm things before you can step out and you can’t do much outside expect go to malls and restaurants.

Anyways, we managed to squeeze in a lot of touristy stuff and even with the cold managed to do all the things on our checklist. So here were the top few things we did and would suggest to anyone who is planning to go to Toronto in the winters.

Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) – Quite a Royal Treat!
Located near the beautiful Toronto University, the ROM is a treat for all history lovers. It’s a huge modern 5 floor building (check the fancy facade in the snap below). Multiples wings with so much to see that it is not possible to see everything in one visit. So we picked the areas of our interest and only decided to see those sections.

The Dinosaurs section awesome. The highlight for me was the huge Barosuarous…. A neck that long, I wonder how it ever held it up. Teradactyls were quite the treat too and scenes from Calvin’s (from C&H) classroom reveries kept popping into my mind. I also quite enjoyed the special section on the trypillians (Aboriginal ancient tribes from Ukraine). Another interesting section was the natural world wing. With a colourful autumn scene done up, this section was definitely the most popular among the kids. Different animals, various show and tells for kids made this section lively and interesting.

Royal Ontario Museum

Casa Loma – A royal rags to riches and back kinda story
This is a fairy tale kind story. A young Henry Pellatt starts of as an industrialist making a fortune in public utilities like electricity. Too much money and fame almost always is very difficult to keep going for too long… so some bad investments and poor Henry was not so rich anymore. Though while he was rich, he really did dream big…So a palatial house he built, which he put so much money into that he could not finish it before he went bankrupt and had to sell it all.

Besides being a little wannabe type, the castle can be compared to any real castle in Britain. With all the fancy trimmings of the post industrial era (hot water and an intercom included) it still manages to look like a 16th century piece of art.

Casa Loma

City Habour Front
Freezing temperatures of -7 and an even higher windchill, and this was the day we decided to check out Toronto’s habour front. Not an ideal scenario, but we managed to still have a great time. Bundled up, we walked the habour front which offers a breathtaking view of the lake. We even managed to have some fun ice skating and checking out some of the boats harboured.

City Habour Front

Down town lights and Christmas displays
Christmas always is a time for festive lights, but nothing prepared me for the festivity of Toronto down town. With light displays along each road, huge structures with beautifully lit designs, it was quite a treat for us. Eaton Center (a mall) had a beautifully done up swaroski Christmas tree. Outside, The Bay (a big departmental store) had some really beautifully intricate window displays. Scenes from Christmas done up with in depth details, the thought and effort of the displays was really noteworthy.

Check out one of the snaps below. All the down town buildings added to the festivities and had the lights for all their floors lit till late in the evening.

Eaton Center Swaroski Christmas Tree

The Bay's Christmas Window Display