A Very Special Visit

James, our eldest son, came for a quick visit last week.  Naturally it was wonderful to see him and it was lovely to spend time together whilst showing him the sights of Toronto.

The highlight of James’ trip was our day at Niagara Falls.  We hired a car and Michael drove through the brutal Toronto traffic to Niagara, which is a couple of hours out of Toronto.  It was my second visit to the falls and Michael’s third.  I don’t think that I could ever get tired of looking at these magnificent cascades.  They are visually stunning but it is the roar of the water splashing down that is most memorable.  We took a ride on the Maid of the Mist, which is always a highlight.  The Maid is a small ferry, which takes passengers to the base of the falls, well, as near as you can safely get.  Everyone dons plastic raincoats as the nearer to the falls you travel, the wetter you get.  It is great fun and the view and roar of the falls is spectacular.

Whilst at the falls, we took a walk alongside the river.  We didn’t see any beavers however we could see where they had been busy.  A number of trees were partly chewed through and wire mesh had been put over the base of the trees to stop the beavers from felling them.  The falls create the fastest rapids in the world and the sound of the rushing water is irresistible to beavers who then feel it is their duty to dam them, however the current is just too strong so they build their nests along the side of the river instead.  James loved the cartoon beaver that explained all about how the falls were created.

After lunch we then took a short drive to Niagara on the Lake to have a wander around the town.  It is a very pretty spot with lots of interesting shops.  Next, it was off to some wineries to taste some Ontario wines.  James particularly liked the sparkling ice wine and so did I. 

We walked James around the city of Toronto showing him  the sites and where to find and feed squirrels.  They don’t mention squirrel feeding in the tourist information so he was particularly blessed. Then took him a few times to Fahrenheit a nice coffee place and he was impressed that the hipsters knew me and then dads coffee card was exposed for his use.

We finished off James’ time with a special dinner at Michael’s (that is the name of the restaurant).  Both James and Michael dined on enormous steaks and enjoyed them immensely.  We then walked to our favourite bar in Toronto – Pravda.  Pravda is a vodka bar that has been decorated with authentic Soviet memorabilia including a giant bust of Lenin.  James couldn’t believe that his parents knew of such a cool place.  It is cool, literally, as all the vodka is kept in a giant freezer room.  We ordered a vodka tasting, which was fun, complete with rye bread and pickles.  It brought back memories of our trip to the Vodka Museum in St Petersburg.

We finished the night off with a beer tasting at C’est What, which was being held as part of the Toronto Beer Festival.  James and Michael had a lovely time tasting a range of beers.  I stuck to my gin and tonic.  Unfortunately it was then time to say goodbye to James, which was very sad.  Hopefully he enjoyed his time enough to want to visit his mum and dad again, wherever we are.

Well, when Toronto heats up the people of Toronto come out to play. 1^st July is Canada Day and a big long weekend. There seems to be two groups in Canada as what to do on this weekend. One group head off to the cottages with their families and celebrate all things Canadian, especially with red and white (they are really secret swan supports, reigning premiers as Michael likes to remind me). The other group is the gay, lesbian, transgender and those not sure what they are.  They have 3 pride marches and close off the rainbow area around Church St. Wandered up on our last night to see the beautiful people and not sure if they succeeded but their dogs looked nice.

As we are leaving Toronto we did the final feed of our squirrel friends and hope  they don’t miss us.  Michael says they must sit around and discuss the philosophical aspects of the all-providing squirrel god who showers them with nuts on a regular basis.

This will be our last post from Toronto as we leave on Saturday for the UK so the next blog entry will detail our adventures in the Old Dart.