Toronto and Niagara Falls

My last ten days in North America took me back into Canada, on the eastern side this time. And once more I loved it.

Toronto isn't really a conventionally beautiful city, and one of my local friends there told me that it didn't have much of a tourist industry until twenty or thirty years ago. But in my book it was unquestionably a great and supremely comfortable place to walk around, explore and generally hang out.

A significant part of this appeal is because it's a hugely diverse city. In stark contrast to Australia, Canada has long had a diverse population, and the federal government specifically decided around the 1960s that in order to develop and grow it was going to become a "nation of immigrants", attracting people with pretty much open arms to resettle there from all over the world. And it's Toronto, the country's biggest city, which is the biggest hub of this global melangerie, with the second highest proportion of immigrants among all world cities but no one dominant immigrant nationality, and a 911 service offered in 150 languages (really). So you can take it as read that you're not exactly going to want for multicultural eating and shopping options anywhere, or feel out of place whoever you are.

The most famous sight in Toronto is the CN Tower, the world's tallest building for 32 years until something in Dubai (where else?!) overtook it in 2007. It looks much like other monster concrete communications towers you can see in cities such as Berlin, Prague and Stockholm, just taller. And I just wasn't prepared to pay some $23 (£14) just to go up to the observation tower.

 The CN Tower

Fortunately, as I've already mentioned, Toronto is a great city to just walk around without spending a cent. Kensington Market is certainly one of the more interesting markets you'll see anywhere. Stretching over a number of narrow streets, it's lively, multicultural and bohemian, with radical bookshops and pot smoking equipment stores, but also nice independent bakers and the like. Within walking distance is an extensive Little Italy, and slightly further from the centre and thus broadly off the tourist trail (thanks Rishi for taking me there) is the Distillery District where beautiful old warehouses have been converted into bars, restaurants, artisan shops and even a small independent theatre - a really, really nice place to explore and hang out for a while. Queen's Park is a very pleasant large park just on the edge of downtown, featuring the very ornate and moderately grand 1893 sandstone provincial legislature building for Ontario. Downtown from the same period and in a not dissimilar style is the also impressive Old City Hall. This has been superseded by City Hall round the corner, designed by a Finnish architect, an award-winning modernist structure opened in 1965. That might give you a clue as to what to expect, but actually as 1960s statement architecture goes I didn't think it was too bad at all. It's two tallish curved towers together forming roughly a circle shape, with a bit over the central lobby that looks remarkably like a white flying saucer, a large artificial lake outside complete with fountains and benches, and a ramp system to get you around the area and also give you vantage points to admire it all. I reckon 1960s concrete looks a lot better with curves than with brutalist edges and sharp angles, and overall it's definitely characterful and probably quite pleasant, with the artificial lake area seeming to be a popular lunch spot.

City Hall

Like in Vancouver, wandering around Toronto's downtown you know you are in North America because of the number of skyscrapers. But you also know you are not in the USA because they are scattered with plenty of relatively low-rise buildings in-between - and I've already commented, probably more than once, about how much of a difference, a positive and human one, this makes to the feel of the city. The skyscrapers also seem to be gleaming steel-and-glass constructions, often kind of attractive, much more than in the American cities I've seen - possibly testament to Canada's first real economic boom coming many decades after the US's.

Like in Vancouver, once you've had enough of the city, there is a fantastic piece of nature virtually on your doorstep. In Toronto this is Toronto Islands. It's worth going just for the ferry trip, because on the water you get a fantastic view back over downtown Toronto. But when you get to the islands, what you have is a very peaceful and pretty unspoilt collection of parkland and beaches, where you could easily stroll for hours or sunbathe all day (as quite a lot of locals seem to). There are some inhabitants who live in charming wooden bungalow huts, but it's all very tightly controlled by the charitable trust who own them all, so thankfully there's been no over-development. One of the beaches is an officially designated 'clothing optional' beach - my Couchsurfing host Brandon who was showing me round (thanks again!) took me there for a brief look, and slightly disturbingly the people who seem to be keenest on taking their clothes off are often those who should definitely keep them on... Anyway, I was amused to see a city council sign at the edge of the beach declaring "Municipal code #608: Clothing is required beyond this point" - amused mostly by the idea that it's specifically written into the municipal code... Nonsense aside, a ferry trip out is a really fantastic way to spend an afternoon and highly recommended if you come here.

The Toronto skyline from Toronto Island

The truly essential thing though to do while in Ontario is to go to Niagara Falls. It's an easy if not exactly cheap day trip from Toronto. And it's truly stunning. Straddling the border between Canada and the USA, there are two parts to the falls - the "bridal gown" falls which run in a straight line on the US side, and the much more breathtaking "horseshoe" falls, shaped as the name would suggest, on the Canadian side. You don't have to spend any money once there to admire the falls from various angles, and you can linger for as long as you want on the path which runs directly adjacent (surprisingly so) to the horseshoe falls. Over one million bathfuls of water course over the edge every single second, which constantly generates large quantities of mist - you can't wander round without getting quite damp, even on a warm sunny day. But you shouldn't really get too bothered by that, because you'll be too busy going 'wow' at the sheer natural power and beauty in evidence. There are several ways that the park authorities part tourists from more of their cash (in fairness, only to channel it back into the upkeep of the park); I did one of these, the Queen of the Mist, a hardy boat which takes you past the bridal gown falls up close and then heads pretty much into the crescent of the horseshoe falls. You're provided with a poncho as standard to avoid getting soaked by the mist. Unsurprisingly the boat is packed but I found it well worth it to get properly up close to the immense fury of the cascading water.

A still picture cannot possibly convey the awesome power...

Unfortunately, in the close vicinity of the falls are also truly ghastly tourist traps of every description - "tacky" does not come close, but fortunately they're concentrated on a street which runs perpendicular, not parallel, to the falls, so you can safely run away screaming and pretty much forget they're there. So mercifully, you don't need to be put off as you can pretty much concentrate on the nature.

The bus tour to Niagara Falls that I booked also featured a stop at the small town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, a deliberately quaint place full of cute colonial 19th Century buildings with traditional awnings housing hat shops, high-end chocolate and cake makers, hotels serving afternoon tea, and so on. They don't allow coaches or other heavy vehicles through the town, so the largest form of transport to be seen was numerous horse-drawn carriages. It's all a little bit artificial, but worth an hour of anyone's time to see a very creditable attempt to preserve a tiny corner of the 19th Century British Empire in Canada (in a real town of 15,000 inhabitants). The tour then concluded with a brief wine tasting stop (the Niagara area is apparently quite prolific wine country, although I'm not sure how many Europeans ever see evidence of that in their restaurants or off-licences), most interesting for the taste of ice wine which is a bit of a local speciality. Think dessert wine and then think sweeter still, and you're pretty much there. They produce it by allowing the grapes to stay on the vine after all the other grapes have been picked some time in the early autumn, until around January by which time the Canadian winter has frozen them solid. They are then picked in the middle of the night, preferably when the temperature is around -15C, and squeezed immediately. The water in the grapes will be entirely frozen, but the sugar won't be - so they get two or three drops of liquid out of each grape. Unsurprisingly this is a costly process, so ice wine is expensive, but what I tasted would certainly be very pleasant as a dessert wine in very small quantities - the bottles are small and I don't think you'd want to drink a load of it. It was mentioned also that overindulging would give you the mother of all hangovers.

Niagara-on-the-Lake

I didn't do that, but I was pretty under the weather for nearly the whole of my stay in Toronto. First I had a nasty cold virus which took an inordinately long time to clear up. Honking and hooting regularly with a tissue to your nose is not a good look, especially in the summer - but I take this as a sign that my body was run down from the various stresses of budget backpacking on my tight itinerary, such as regular long journeys, sharing a range of dorms with dodgy air conditioning, crashing with friends and Couchsurfers in sharply varying degrees of comfort and privacy, often eating less well than usual, unavailability of gym workouts, and a lack of proper solo quiet time. It's a strange anomaly that at the same time as I've been incredibly mentally relaxed, I've almost certainly got a bit physically stressed. I then had some sort of chronic (thankfully not acute) digestive upset - goodness knows where from this time. Given some of the dodgy food and catering facilities I've used over the past four and a half months, I should probably just be grateful that it was the first time it's happened since India. The net result is that although Toronto has a large gay scene - with a Pride the week before I arrived which attracts the small matter of one million (!) participants annually - alas I can't tell you very much about it except that it's clearly big, visible and confident.

In case you haven't got the idea yet, I really liked Toronto, one of those places I just felt at home, and pretty high up the list (yes yes, it's rather a long list now) of places I hope to get back to.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393691&id=61207375&l=90bc46830a