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Heading back to Chicago to tie up some loose ends
Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)
Wandering around downtown
Casa Loma
Casa Loma is Toronto’s improbable castle on a hill: a vast Gothic Revival mansion built between 1911 and 1914 for financier Sir Henry Pellatt. Designed by E. J. Lennox, it took about 300 workers and $3.5 million to construct, with turrets, grand rooms, an organ-filled Great Hall, gardens, and an underground tunnel to the former stables. Pellatt’s fortune collapsed within a decade, and he left the house in 1923; today, the extravagant private residence survives as one of Toronto’s most distinctive historic attractions.
A climb up Casa Loma’s narrow tower staircases leads to sweeping views across Toronto, with the CN Tower rising beyond the rooftops. It is one of the castle’s best surprises: a medieval-style lookout over a thoroughly modern city.
A relaxing day by the beach
Ward Island and Toronto Island Park
Julie and I took a ferry ride over to Ward Island and Toronto Island park
You can see great views of Toronto from the boat and from the island
Ward’s Island feels worlds away from downtown Toronto: a quiet, car-free community of narrow lanes, modest cottages, beaches, and a remarkably strong neighbourhood identity. Although the homes can look enviably located, this is not a conventional affluent waterfront enclave. Residents own their houses but lease the land, and sales are regulated at formula-based prices rather than left to an open, highest-bidder real-estate market—a system intended to preserve a permanent, mixed community rather than invite speculation.torontoisland+1
Because there are only a limited number of Island homes, would-be buyers must first win a place on the Toronto Islands Residential Community Trust’s Purchasers’ List, which has up to 500 positions; when a home becomes available, it is offered through that controlled system rather than publicly marketed. The next scheduled opening for applications is October 2026.
Toronto’s Beaches International Jazz Festival… No actual Jazz was heard
We kept hearing that Toronto had a Jazz Fest and that we should check it out. We went to check it out and kept wandering Queen Street East and wandering expecting to hear jazz. We passed several musical groups playing on the street, just never playing jazz. It was a long music crawl but all of the music seemed to blues, funk, soul, rock, Latin, R&B, reggae, and cover-band material. We eventually wandered into a bar and had a drink. The bartender said that this was indeed the case. No Jazz.
Toronto – The land of the duplex
In Toronto, you will see many duplexes like these. Houses where the ownership is as divided as the decorating style and roofline.
Our Friend Andy Came to Visit
We ended up taking a second trip to Niagara falls when Andy came to visit from the Twin Cities. This time we took a train instead of the tour bus we took with Rachel. The jury is out on which was a better way to visit Niagara falls. The tour bus stopped a few places we really weren’t interested in but the train was surprisingly slow and only had limited departure and return trip to choose from. We thought we would be happier taking the train (especially considering our tour bus drivers sense of humor), but in the end taking the tour bus was the better experience. We still had an amazing and wet experience.
We also visited The Distillery District. There happened to be an outdoor film festival happening. The viewers were given headsets to watch the movie and sat on giant blow up couches.
Dog Fountain
The famous dog fountain is located in Berczy Park. The fountain was designed by landscape architect Claude Cormier and was intended as a tribute to the many dog owners who frequent the neighborhood. It even includes a shallow water trough around the base where real dogs can stop for a drink. It features 27 life-sized cast-iron dogs, each spraying water from its mouth while gazing up at a golden bone perched at the very top of the fountain.
Kim’s Convenience
Several years ago, I watched a streaming series called Kim’s Convenience, about a Korean Canadian family who run a neighborhood convenience store on Queen Street in Toronto. With its warm humor and heartfelt storytelling, the show explores themes of immigration, identity, generational differences, and community while celebrating Korean Canadian culture.
The convenience store used in the series is a real storefront, and I still pass by it occasionally whenever we take the Queen Street streetcar. It’s always fun to recognize a familiar TV location in the middle of an ordinary trip through the city.
Canadian Wild Fires
Toronto experienced its share of wildfire smoke, much like many parts of the U.S. This photo makes the scene look especially bleak. While the sky didn’t appear quite this orange to the naked eye, it’s how my iPhone captured it.
The U.S. uses an Air Quality Index (AQI) that ranges from 1–500, while Canada uses an Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) that ranges from 1–11. Toronto reached 11, the highest level on the Canadian scale, indicating a very high health risk. My iPhone Weather app also showed that both the Twin Cities and Duluth reached similarly hazardous air quality levels.
CN Tower during the Wildfires
Our friend Rachel came to visit and we hit a lot of tourist spots together
CN Tower After the wildfires
A Boat Tour of the Harbor
The Gardiner Museum of ceramics
Niagara Falls
And after some good times and good food together, Rachel headed back to St. Paul
Graffiti
The Legislature in Ontario
Kids in the Hall
I don’t know how many of you following us know about the comedy team Kids in the Hall but they were pretty awesome! They got their start at the Rivoli comedy club in Toronto.
The Bata Shoe Museum
One of the first places we visited was the Bata Shoe Museum. The building was designed to look like an open shoe box. The Bata Shoe Museum is basically a giant, very stylish time machine for feet. It’s where you go to see how humans have been showing off, surviving, working, partying, praying, and playing, just by what they put on their toes.
The Beavers
We started seeing Beavers around town. Apparently this is a public installation having to do with the World Cup. The City of Toronto “released” a colony of beavers honouring every country playing in the tournament throughout Old Town. Their locations are not made public so you have to stumble on them.
These are the one’s we have managed to find, so far…
Our friend Rachel came to visit and found the Welcome Beaver at Union Station.
We found where the USA Beaver was supposed to be but something ominous happened to the USA Beaver. After doing some quick research we learned that the USA Beaver was (unsurprisingly) demolished. Go figure.
But a few days later we found another version of a USA Beaver in protective custody.
Lots of Dogs in this town
Dogs on streetcars and at dog beaches!
And more pictures of the Beach and Boardwalk
Our First (actually second) Airbnb
The flight to Toronto was smooth but our first 24 hours would be turbulent.
I tried to sign up for mobile services from Chicago so that when we landed, “our phones would just work.” When we landed, however, they didn’t. We had to try to find WiFi at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport so we could contact Lucky Mobile and work out the problem. It took a lot of bouncing around to get to someone who could get to the bottom of things, but it turns out that despite Lucky saying things were set up correctly when we left Chicago, our credit card had declined the transaction, so our plans were never activated.
We ultimately decided to go to our Airbnb to work on getting our coverage issue handled in a more conducive environment, only to realize upon arrival that we kind of needed our data working on our phones in order to follow the instructions to get into our Airbnb. Julie remembered that the instructions said to go through the side gate to the back of the building, and we would be able to get a key out of a lockbox. Now we just needed internet so that we could get the code to the lockbox.
Fortunately, another Airbnb guest was in the unit on the main floor and, after hearing our story, helped us connect to the Airbnb WiFi. We got the code, opened the lockbox, and got into our Airbnb.
I immediately got on the phone with Lucky Mobile to get our accounts fired up, while Julie explored our new digs. It took the better part of an hour getting bounced around, and there was around a 20-minute period when we were on with our Capital One credit card to ensure they would process the charges and not decline them (as they had been doing). Finally, after all of the time trying to set this up in Chicago originally, then at the Toronto airport, and now another hour at our Airbnb, our phones had Canadian numbers and a data plan!
After hanging up with Lucky Mobile, Julie told me that our Airbnb had a few issues. First, the floorboards were warped and sticking up all over the place, from the kitchen all the way to the bathroom. The edges were very sharp and dangerous for bare feet.
Also, it was freezing. We had rented a garden apartment, which seemed really nice in the photos, but there was no thermostat in our unit. The blower for the whole building was in our unit, and it was pretty loud.
Also, Julie saw a bug in one of the bedrooms, which retreated back under the trim when she turned on the light. Sorry, no photo 🙂
Julie got in touch with our host while I was on the support call with Lucky Mobile and had confirmed all of this, plus some additional details. The thermostat was on the main floor, but since it was pretty hot in Toronto, the AC would likely be going most of the time. The host said that he could bring over space heaters (which was thoughtful), but that we could also use the decorative fireplace to heat the space. The floorboards had apparently all warped due to a recent water issue that took place with one of the last tenants, but could not be repaired while the unit was booked. He also asked if we could send a picture of the bug, and he would spray.
We contacted Airbnb and let them know that the place, which we had committed to for a month, was not working out. After documenting all of the issues above, they told us that they could probably help. In the meantime, Julie and I decided to head to dinner, then to a hotel rather than stay at the Airbnb.
Julie found a place that looked perfect on Hotels.com, and we booked it for two nights. When our Uber dropped us off there, however, it didn’t look like a hotel… She looked up the name of the place, and I looked on Google Maps and saw that it was a couple of blocks away.
So, we (mostly me) began rolling our four suitcases, with carry-on luggage secured over the telescopic handles, down the street. By this time, it was close to midnight but still in the 80s. We were both starting to sweat, and our stress levels were high. We got to the address where the hotel was supposed to be, but there was no hotel. Julie looked at the email that we got, and it showed that the address was actually the first address that we had the Uber driver take us to, which was confusing because it was an apartment building.
We called the number, and they explained first that it was not a hotel, it was a short-term rental (and apparently Airbnb on the back end!), and second, that we needed to pay a $50 damage fee (preemptive and non-refundable) and agree to terms from a link in the email in order to get the check-in instructions to an apartment in the building.
We walked back to the apartment building, connected with the security concierge, and clicked the link, paid the damage fee and got the check-in instructions. Apparently there was a room adjacent to the lobby with a lockbox that I now had the code for. I walked in, confident but tired, thinking we were finally home free, only to discover that there were over 50 lockboxes in this little space! I put my reading glasses on and fired up the flashlight on my phone and began looking for ours. After several minutes of this, the concierge came in and began to help (he was a super nice guy), and he ended up finding it. I opened it, took the key out, and we headed to our second (apparently) Airbnb (but somehow through Hotels.com).
The place was small, but had great views, and it was clean.When we woke up in the morning, we saw the message from Airbnb support that they were going to let us out of the contract, and we could book another Airbnb.
