Trono

This weekend we ventured North, across the border (via some very friendly customs people - note the sarcasm) to Trono. We left home at about 8am Saturday morning and arrived at our very swish hotel, the Marriott - which we got for an absolute bargain - at 11am. We walked through town, and went to Chinatown for some lunch, including good old dumplings. Toronto's Chinatown is the largest in North America. After we stuffed ourselves silly, we made our way to the CN Tower - the tallest free standing building in the world.

Ryan in front of CN Tower

Firstly, we went up an elevator that looks outside as you go up - this took us up 342m to a lookout with some amazing views. There was also a glass floor that looked straight below you.

Kristy on the glass floor of CN Tower

Next we went up to a height of 447m to the worlds highest man made observation gallery for 360 degree views for up to 260km away.

View from CN Tower

We then went to look at Fort York, a fort that was built in the 1700's for battles, but it was really boring. So we stopped off at a bar for a couple of drinks.

A policeman of horseback booking a car - would love to have seen that chase!

We then thought we would head down to Air Canada Stadium to try and score some tickets to the sold out ice hockey game - Toronto Maple Leafs V Pittsburgh Penguins. We approached some scalpers. A crowd of them hovered around us until they realised we weren't prepared to pay $500 for tickets! We settled for watching the game at a bar.
After a few drinks, we caught the underground subway home.

Sunday we caught the subway to some markets downtown only to realise they were closed Sundays. So we walked through PATH - Toronto's underground network - to get to the Kensington Markets across the other side of town.

PATH facts:
* PATH is the largest underground shopping complex with 27 km of shopping arcades.
* More than 50 buildings/office towers are connected through PATH. Twenty parking garages, five subway stations, two major department stores, six major hotels, and a railway terminal are also accessible through PATH.
*There are more than 125 grade level access points and 60 decision points where a pedestrian has to decide between turning left or right, or continuing straight on.

We walked through the markets, then caught a Street Car (tram) and the subway to the top of town to Casa Loma - a castle in the middle of town.

Casa Loma

Casa Loma was built for a local Canadian man, and completed construction in 1914. It cost $3.5 million and took 300 men 3 years to construct . We got to explore secret passageways, towers and an 800ft underground tunnel that led to the stables. It was pretty cool. Turns out the guy who owned it went bankrupt and now the council own the property.

After a pizza for lunch we drove back home (via the even friendlier Customs people).