Toronto Day Three/Four: Long Walks, Skylines by Night and the Art Gallery of Ontario

With our kiddos staying with family in nearby Barrie, John and I had a full 24 hours to explore the city. Alone! (Spoiler alert: it was much easier to navigate Toronto without kids in tow!)

On our agenda:

• Supper out
• City Hall/Skyline at night
• Art Gallery of Ontario
• Chinatown/Kensington Market

Each year – around our anniversary – we try to visit one of our favourite restaurants (a steakhouse chain), which happens to have several locations in Toronto. We found a convenient spot downtown and made a reservation.

Supper was lovely. The food is delicious and, since we go each year, I also know exactly what I want to order. Some people relish the idea of trying new restaurants, but I find it stressful. If I’m being honest, it mostly boils down to money. I’m happy to be adventurous if someone else is paying, but if we’re responsible for the bill, I prefer to eat at a place I know I’m going to enjoy (and avoid decision fatigue).

This meal – and our time alone together – did not disappoint! It is wonderful being married to your best friend. By the time we finished eating it was dusk, so I suggested we go back to City Hall/Nathan Philip’s Square. It was absolutely gorgeous and I enjoyed sitting and watching the water fountains. The temperature was perfect once the sun went down.

We also wanted to see the city skyline at night. We considered going to Centre Island, which has an iconic view and would have been breathtaking at night. But…we had already been there earlier in our visit and it would have cost about $16. In the end, we opted to walk to Trillium Park, which is on the outskirts of the city.

It ended up being a very long trek – it was about 4 km each way, and some of it was not well-lit. I was really tired (it was about 10:30 pm at this point) and if I had it to do over again, I would have walked down mid-evening, had a picnic on the shore of the harbour, and watched the sunset/waited for all the city lights to come on. (Or we could have taken that ferry to Centre Island, and wouldn’t have had to walk very far at all.) Live and learn…

But I’m cheap. And Trillium Park didn’t seem very far away when I looked at a map. At one point I thought: “I would give absolutely anything to magically snap my fingers and be home in bed”. Adding insult to injury, the whole walk down I realized we would be walking a long way back, too.

But then we reached the park and the views were stunning and it all felt worth it. We were so, so glad we hadn’t tried to do this with the kids. We sat on the shoreline listening to the waves and admiring the skyline.

Ordinarily, this would have been a good time to call an Uber (which, of course, would have cost far more than the ferry tickets to Centre Island), but it was suddenly incredibly busy since The Chicks were playing at a concert venue right next to Trillium Park. We did in fact have to walk 4 km back, but managed to find a slightly easier route.

I was very happy to reach public transit (I managed to have a series of micro naps on the subway) and was even more happy we had parked at the subway station. No more walking for the day!

We ended up having a great sleep (even if it was 1:30 am before we got back and settled at the condo!), and it was such a treat to not have to coordinate breakfast for the kids. I did some repacking for NYC, enjoyed a big mug of hot coffee and then headed out for one final day of exploration in Toronto.

We had never planned to go to the Art Gallery of Ontario because we knew this wasn’t something the kids were likely to enjoy. Now that they were being happily entertained elsewhere, we decided to add this stop to our roster.

We arrived before the gallery was open, so took the opportunity to wander through Chinatown and Kensington Market (the latter reminded me a lot of Christiania/Freetown in Copenhagen).

We got back to the gallery shortly after it opened and spent the next few hours exploring that space. There were some excellent collections by Canadian artists. The European art was a bit underwhelming; there was one Van Gogh (our favourite artist, but this particular work was not too exciting), a Picasso, several by Gauguin, a Monet. As per usual, I enjoyed the architectural spaces within the gallery – especially this enormous wooden spiral staircase.

There was a really beautiful exhibit full of reflective orbs.

We spotted one Alex Colville (he attended the undergraduate university where John and I met/got married and went on to live in Wolfville) but were surprised there wasn’t more of his work featured in the gallery since he is an iconic Canadian artist.

I was drawn to this painting titled The Tiff; I thought the artist captured a relatable moment so accurately.

We stopped at the gallery cafe and enjoyed some absolutely delicious (albeit outrageously priced) desserts. It was worth every penny, though, for a nice quiet moment enjoyed together in a gorgeous space.

After the gallery, we wandered around for a few more hours ending up back at St. Lawrence Market.

We took pictures of the back of the “Flatiron” which has a fascinating mural – it is actually painted on a giant panel that sticks out a foot or so off the back wall of the building.

I bought a soft-serve ice cream at McDonald’s (I had been craving one all week because of the heat). We bought a postcard to send to ourselves. Nothing too exciting but, at this point, I felt – aside from that elusive Blue Jay’s home game – I had seen everything I wanted to in Toronto!

By the time we got back to the subway station/our car, it was time to pick up the kids kids. I made them a box of Mac n’ Cheese for supper, we watched a bit of a movie, did a load of laundry, packed the car for New York City, showered, and went to bed.

So long Toronto! Next up, New York…