Toronto and Niagara Falls

On Monday, Carolyn took me to the airport in Edmonton. At the airport, when I tried to check in, I got a shock: my flight was at 1:15 PM, not at 3:00 PM as I had in mind. But it was already half past one, so I had definitely missed the flight. I went to the check-in counter and needed an excuse, so I said that we had a car breakdown and were running late because of that. My flight was rescheduled for 3:15 PM (this time really at 3:00!). The flight was then delayed by an hour, but it didn't bother me, I was just glad that everything worked out in the end. Once I landed in Toronto, I took a taxi to my Airbnb accommodation and went to sleep.

On Tuesday, I had a lazy day. I slept in and roughly planned what I would do in the coming weeks. The plan wasn't very strict, so I could still fit in something spontaneously. I went grocery shopping so that I had something to cook. That was all I did on that day.

On Wednesday, I headed towards downtown Toronto. I strolled through Queen's Park, which was under renovation and therefore partially closed off. I passed by many university buildings and other buildings, especially churches, with special architecture.

On Thursday, I took the shuttle boat to Toronto Island. However, it wasn't great because half of the island was underwater. Some paths were closed off and many meadows were marshy, so I didn't feel like walking across the whole island. I left the island again by ferry and went to the CN Tower. I went up with the elevator. Unfortunately, some clouds had moved in during the afternoon, so the view wasn't as good anymore. Nevertheless, the view was spectacular, and it took some courage for me to stand on the glass panels and look 342 meters down. On the way back home, I walked through the front yard of the train museum. But I was too tired to go inside and settled for the wagons and locomotives outside.

On Friday, I took a tour to Niagara Falls. First, the bus stopped at the Lakeview winery, where we could taste ice wine. Ice wine is made from grapes that are harvested in winter. That's why the wine is very sweet, almost too sweet to drink. The red ice wine tasted like undiluted berry syrup with a touch of alcohol. We had time to try a red and a white wine, then we continued. The bus stopped twice at viewpoints, the first time we saw the Niagara River with the landscape under World Biosphere Reserve protection, the second time we saw the spot where the river made a 90° turn. Then we arrived at Niagara Falls. But before we got closer, we had dinner with a view of the waterfalls. It was a rich buffet, but it wasn't enough for more than 3 courses as we only had just under an hour. After that, we went to Table Rock, where we were right next to the Horseshoe Falls, the most famous of the three waterfalls that make up Niagara Falls. I admired the waterfall from above before daring to approach it with a boat tour. That's when I truly felt the tremendous force with which the water thundered down, the wind was so strong that the rain poncho almost flew away, which I needed to avoid getting soaked. It was amazing how close we could get with the boat. Or maybe it just felt that way because the waterfalls were so high. After the boat tour, I went on the Ferris wheel, from which I had a wonderful view. Then night fell slowly, and the waterfalls were illuminated. It looked beautiful, and the grand finale was a fireworks display over the river. After that, we took the bus back to Toronto, and I arrived at my accommodation at midnight. Before going to bed, I packed the last things because the next morning I took the bus to Montreal.