NIAGARA FALLS and TORONTO

May 29, 2006

Don had reserved a luxury hotel room on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls.  We checked in and admired the beautiful view right out our window.  The falls, in all their glory, were right there, just out the window of our room.

The hotel had valet parking, of course, and the first thing we needed to do was get something out of the car.  Don had to go down and wangle his way with the valet guy, who wanted to go to the car and get the item.  Trouble is, who could find anything in our car?  Finally the fellow agreed to take Don to the car, which was parked in a lot several blocks away.

Once Don returned we walked down to see the falls closer up.  They are magnificent, with water rushing over the cliff at breakneck speed.  We watched the Maid of the Mist motor against the forceful power of the flowing water, passengers decked out in rain slickers.

We returned to our hotel for the complimentary afternoon refreshments and ate so much we thought it would do for dinner.

Then back to our room to enjoy the falls bathed in rainbow colored lights.

The following morning we had the valet bring our car around so we could get our bikes and took a bike ride along the great river enjoying the many sights and sensory delights of the powerful force of Mother Nature.

Back to the hotel for a shower and breakfast.  While we ate we enjoyed watching the antics of the window washers, hight above with their climbing gear and squeegees.  After breakfast we checked out and we were off to Toronto to see what we could see.

Toronto turned out to be an industrial town.  Not too interesting.  We drove from one side of town to the other, and then decided to visit Casa Loma, an interesting castle built by Sir Henry Pellatt in the early part of the 20^th century.  Sir Henry was a prominent Toronto financier, industrialist and military man.  He hired a well-known architect, E. J. Lennox, to design a medieval castle to be built on the hill overlooking Toronto.  The estate cost $3.5 million in 1911!  That’s a lot of moola in today’s dollars.  Too bad for Sir Henry.  His financial success hit a snag and he ended up losing his castle.

The home is open for tours and we rented the audio guide and enjoyed the tour of the home, replete with Sir Henry’s art collection, original furniture and décor.  The story of the house and Sir Henry’s successes and downfall unfolded as we moved from room to room.  It is a very interesting house.

The garden looked beautiful from the windows, but by the time we got through with the house tour it was 5pm and they were closing up, so we didn’t get to see much of the garden.

We decided to blow this pop stand and wended our way through the rush hour traffic to the freeway.  Just about the time we reached the outskirts of Toronto the radio reported tornados and horrible rainstorms right on our route, so we got off the freeway and checked into a motel for the night.