August Vacation - Day 3

Day 3 we leave Niagara Falls behind and head to Toronto... We tried to find something do so or see between Niagara Falls and Toronto. We stopped in Burlington which was right on the shores of Lake Ontario. They were having a Children's Festival featuring a pack of clowns singing, "There was a farmer had a dog and BINGO was his name, oh..." Cheryl took one look and said it was the reenactment of her worst nightmare. LOL! For those who don't know, Cheryl is afraid of clowns... There was nothing else of interest on the way to Toronto.

It was too early to check into our hotel, so we stopped on the way into Toronto at Casa Loma. It looked like a real medieval castle! Very cool, until we started reading about it... it was built in 1914, and completely modernized in 1937. I was having flash-backs to Bodie (the old west ghost town from the 1930's) What a tourist trap! It would have cost almost $100 for the four of us to tour the inside of the castle, so we just walked around the outside and then left. It was an amazing building... no gargoyles, but there is an angry looking unicorn on the tower.





Getting to the hotel was a bit of the challenge. The streets were narrow, and there were pedestrians, bikes and taxis everywhere! Garmina goes haywire around tall buildings, and we didn't have an exact address for the hotel (only the street name). She sent us around the block three times before we figured out that we were driving right past the hotel... Then we drove around the block three more times trying to find the self-park garage, (we also ended up getting lost in part of the underground city). We finally gave up and used valet parking. lol!

Our room at the hotel was AMAZING! Thank-you AAA upgrades, yahoo! There were two queen-sized beds and a sitting room with desk, couch, a couple chairs, coffee table and BIG flat-screen TV!

We had no idea what to do next, so we started with a bus tour... the Hippo Tours to be exact! It's similar to the Duck Tours, but without the "quacking." We take a bus tour around the city, then the bus drives into the water and becomes a boat; and we take a boat tour of the lake shore area. Toronto is a beautiful city!

We had dinner from a side walk hot dog vendor, and went exploring in the underground city (this time on foot). It's kind of spooky down there when everything is closed!

We found an open convenience store, got some snacks and went back to the room to watch soccer for the rest of the evening. Hey, this is Canada! They show soccer on non-cable channels! LOL!