NORTH AMERICA TRIP FOR DEN & KEITH, ANG & IAN

There is quite a bit of ground to cover on this post as we visited 4 places in Ontario:

Niagara Falls, Toronto, Collingwood and Ottawa

NIAGARA FALLS (Apr 23rd – 24th)

After crossing the border into Canada, we headed off to Niagara Falls which was around 3 hours drive away. Before we got there though we stopped off at the iconic Canadian coffee shop of Tim Hortons, famous for its huge range of donuts and their donut centres, aptly named Timbits. While we were sat outside the shop a woman pulled up with three dogs and offered to sell us one of them, a puppy, but alas, we didn’t have enough room in the car.

We arrived at Niagara mid afternoon and checked into the Marriot Fallsview Hotel. As we were only staying one night, we decided to spoil ourselves and get some really nice high rooms overlooking the famous falls and they didn’t disappoint as we all had a ‘wow’ moment as we looked out of our room windows. The sun was still shinning brightly so we quickly headed off down to the viewing area to get a close up view of the falls in all their glory and it was amazing.

After spending around an hour taking photos and videos we headed off back to the room and chilled in our jacuzzi baths before going out to dinner. Den had booked the ‘boujee’ rotating restaurant at the top of the nearby Skylon Tower that overlooks the falls and the wider Niagara area. In the evening the falls are also lit up with multiple colours that change so that was also spectacular.

The next morning there was a little bit of rain in the air first thing but we had already planned a lazy morning in the rooms, checking out at 11am. We stored our luggage and then went back down and took the ‘journey behind the falls’ which is a network of tunnels that puts you right behind and next to the water thundering down, fantastic.

Then we headed back upstairs in the nearby complex and took the ‘Flight over Niagara’ ride. For those of you who have been lucky enough to go to Orlando and specifically Epcot, there is a ride called ‘soaring’, a gliding flight simulator with a surround movie screen and the Niagara ride is very similar to that. This ride takes you on a journey through time and you fly over, under and below Niagara Falls and the surrounding area, it’s amazing and well worth doing.

Following the flight, we headed up to Niagara town, about 25 mins walk from the falls. They call it mini Vegas, or maybe mini Blackpool with its myriad of cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops and funfair rides, including a big wheel. On route we passed the Sheraton Hotel where Ang & Ian stayed over 20 years ago and it’s still going strong. Niagara Falls is a special place, for those lucky enough to have been, it’s still fabulous and for those who haven’t, we hope you will get the chance one day.

After picking up our luggage at the hotel we drove to Toronto, which was only about an hour away and checked into the Hampton Inn, Mississauga, just to the west of the city. Ang & Den had found a nearby nail shop so off they went to get their nails painted. For dinner, we all just fancied something simple and a subway across the road was absolutely perfect for us.

TORONTO ( Apr 24th – 25th)

Unfortunately it was peeing down the next morning, but we didn’t let that deter us. We caught the train into the city centre, which was a fun experience and then had a little bit of a walk round. It wasn’t worth doing a bus tour as it was much too wet and we had to duck in and out of shopping malls to try and stay dry.

Our main objective for the day though was a ‘boujee’ lunch in the revolving restaurant at the top of the CN Tower. More pub quiz knowledge, the CN Tower (Canadian National) is Toronto’s main landmark standing at 5333m high (1800 feet), completed in 1976. It’s the 10th tallest free standing structure in the world and still the tallest in the western hemisphere. At the top there are observation decks and even a glass floor to stand on and look down.

We headed up the tower as planned and were a bit concerned the weather would put a damper on the views from the top, however, as we were having lunch, fortunately the rain clouds began to clear giving us a great view of the city and the wider Toronto area (hooray, we hear you cheer).

After lunch and plenty of ‘viewing’ we headed back to the station and caught the train back to the hotel. We chilled in the evening enjoying a few games of cards, some nibbles with a few glasses of wine.

COLLINGWOOD (Apr 26th – 27th)

Collingwood is a small town of 25,000 people, about 150km, 2 hrs drive, north of Toronto, It is situated at the Southern point of Georgian Bay, which is linked to the larger Lake Huron. It’s famous for its ski resort at the nearby Blue Mountains and it’s also close to Wasaga beach, which, believe it or not, at 14km, is actually the longest fresh water beach in the world (hard to believe eh). Another bizarre fact is that outside of official Elvis week in Memphis, Collingwood was widely recognised as the world’s largest Elvis festival for over 20 years. At its height it drew nearly 30,000 people to Collingwood, or more than the actual population who lived there (even harder to believe).

Collingwood is very dear to Ang & Ian’s heart as they, along with Rob & Leigh, lived there for a couple of years way back in 2001-3, so to say they were looking forward to be going back was an under statement.

We left Toronto and picked up the Airport road which is the back door, scenic road to Collingwood, avoiding highway 400 that used to get a bit congested at times. The sun was shining and the trees were starting to show the first signs of spring, very nice. We reached the town about 1230 and landed at the Days inn & Suites at the top of the town. As we were early, only one room was ready and it was very ‘boujee’, so we dropped our cases and headed out for a drive.

Our first stop was the Blue mountain ski resort. village, 15 mins drive from the hotel. There are 43 ski runs (of various difficulty), each with a vertical drop of about 750 feet. Those aren’t the biggest slopes, but they are very accessible for the public (basically just off the main road) and they are part of a fantastic resort village full of apartments, hotels, chalets, restaurants, cafes, boutique shops and bars. Ang & Ian said it had definitely expanded since they were last here and there was also a nice lake which we sat down by with a coffee to get some afternoon sun and enjoy the views.

Next up was a drive to Ang & Ian’s old house at Lockhart Road, situated at the top of the main high street and they said it looked exactly the same, even the paintwork had been refreshed in the same colours! We saw the playground down the road where Ang used to take Leigh and across the road from the house was the high school where Rob went. Even the subway and candy shop were still there. Ang & Ian walked down the high street to see which shops they could remember, meeting up with Den & Keith at Loblaws, their favourite weekly supermarket, to get a few more supplies.

For dinner we had a nice blow out at the Boston Pizza house before heading down to Sunset Point to see, yes you guessed it, the sunset and very nice it was too. Den & Keith thought Collingwood was picture postcard material, while Ang & Ian said they didn’t really appreciate it’s beauty as much back then, but coming back had been amazing and brought back lots of good memories (1,2,3 awwww!)

OTTAWA (April 27th-28th)

It was a a good 6 hour drive to Ottawa so we set off straight after breakfast saying farewell to Collingwood. The drive to Ottawa was very scenic, through the stunning Canadian countryside passing numerous lakes (so many) and tree lined roads in the glorious sunshine. We also saw a number of ‘moose warning’ signs on route (guess you wouldn’t want to hit one of them). After stopping at Bancroft for a coffee at our favourite Tim Hortons, we landed in Ottawa at 5-30, checking in at the Hampton Inn a nice ‘boujee’ hotel with nice big ‘boujee’ rooms.

Den had found us a nice ‘boujee’ steak and grille restaurant in the city centre, so we headed out for dinner, returning to the hotel for a few games of UNO and glasses of wine before bed.

We had only booked one night in Ottawa, as Montreal, our next stop, was only a couple of hours drive away, therefore we had most of the next day to check out the city. After a nice breakfast we caught an uber to the old town part of the city and were very pleasantly surprised by what greeted us. Parliament Hill is an area on the southern bank of the Ottawa river that houses the Parliament of Canada (like the House of Commons in London). It has a huge range of French gothic architecture that attracts over 3 Million visitors a year. There was a lot of refurbishment going on, apparently over $3 billion spent since 2002 and it’s supposed to all be finished in 2028 ( they’ll need to get a shifty on). Anyway, it’s spectacular to look at, especially with all the spires on the buildings, just like going back in time. We have also observed that the French love a bronze statue and there are plenty of them around including the National War memorial where we were unexpectedly treated to a ‘changing of the guard’ and as you would expect it was very polished. After that it was a quick walk in the city malls and a nice coffee before heading back to the hotel to pick up our luggage.

We were soon to be crossing the Ottawa river and changing province, travelling to Quebec and the city of Montreal.