TORONTO: Brian & Cheryl's Walk-about
Travelling in February is subject to the weather. We had to leave a day earlier than we planned to avoid a winter storm here. This was mirrored perfectly with a storm moving in to Toronto the day we were leaving there.We stayed downtown at the Sheraton with a view south-east towards the lake. It was a corner room that ended up being very noisy with people coming and going down the stairwell all night long. This is the view with the sun coming up.
So we complained. They upgraded our room and services for free. This included a pass to the VIP lounge that had free appetizers from 5 pm 'til 8 and free breakfast. Sweet. We could have gone to the exercise room with a trainer for free too but didn't bring that kind of clothing.
On Friday morning, we ate at our favorite diner, The Senator (note about this link: interactive video ... just hold the cursor on the image and move it in the direction you want to see), which is the oldest diner in Toronto. Then the mssion was to find the new PUMA Concept store hoping to score some fine sneakers. It proved to be a disappointment, there weren't any cool sneakers, like the ones shown here.
From there we headed out to IKEA, which is right beside where Cheryl needed to go for her course. We bought some things that you can't get shipped or aren't available in the catelogue.
There is 27 km. of underground tunnels and shopping areas through out the core of the downtown; the Sheraton hotel is directily connected to this "Path". Unfortunately, most of the shops are closed on the weekends. So for most of the morning I had the labyrinth to myself.
Quiet and grand in scale with icons of success; these concourses are the cathedrals of commerce. For centuries the church was the tallest building in the city, not now. We noticed, from our hotel VIP lounge on the 43rd floor, that in the middle of the Eaton Centre is a church that has been enveloped by the shopping mall.
Throughout the "Path" there are nexuses of tunnels that have large skylight atriums to view the heights of the surrounding buildings.
BCE Place is astounding. This is the view north as you come up the stairs out of the underground.
The view to the south out the end wall of reflective glass to a building across the street.
The curving arches incorporate this older building as part of its structure.
This view looks east from our noisy room towards the Eaton Centre with late afternoon light. The old building is the Law Courts as seen on "This is Wonderland" on CBC.
This amazing building is the Sharp Center of Design and is part of the Ontario College of Art & Design. We saw this on our way to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see the installation of Christo's work.
