Toronto

Toronto is a big city in Canada with a nice downtown with the CN Tower dominating the skyline. La tour CN Tower gives you a tour of the tower which has several options including the revolving restaurant. We got the timed admission tickets to get access to the main observation level.

The elevator which takes you up has great views of how high you are while you ride up. It was a quick trip to the top. The observation level has a glass bottom at certain places where you can see all the way to the bottom of the tower and try ‘to dare’ yourself to stand on it. We got some nice pictures there. Unfortunately, the fog was thick, so we could not see Lake Ontario from the tower, but only some parts of the city. We were offered to use the ticket for another day, but we knew we weren’t going to come back any time sooner, so we went anyway. 

We drove around the Casa Loma which is the castle-style mansion and gardens in Toronto and an important landmark. There are tickets to visit the museum and see the castle interiors, but time did not permit it as we were there for just a day. 

We visited the distillery district in Toronto and enjoyed checking out the many shops there and we got to get some really nice perfumed soaps at one of the shops there. The area has a history of having been a whiskey distillery. It has old historic buildings o the 19th century and cobblestone streets. Lots of artwork sculptures line the buildings as well. 

To cross over from the US to Canada near the rainbow bridge, the traffic delayed us by around 2-3 hours. Border wait times are listed here which would be useful for anyone who wants to plan ahead of time. https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/bwt-taf/

Niagara Falls:

Niagara Falls is an hour away from Toronto, so making a trip to both places made a good choice. We wanted to visit Niagara falls from the Canadian side which definitely has a better view and also allowed my 6-year-old to see the majestic falls for the first time. She was awed at how huge the falls were when we got on the Hornblower boat ( not called the maid of the mist like on the US side). The attraction is called Voyage to the falls.

We booked a room at the Marriott which is right across from the falls and gave us a great view of the falls from the 31st floor. The boats could be clearly seen from the hotel windows filled with people wearing the familiar red rain jackets of the Hornblower boat in Canada. But there is a lot of mist flying near the horseshoe falls most of the time, so it was kind of hard to view the entire glory of the Horseshoe falls, but we had a clear view of the American falls.

When we walked along the path adjoining the falls to get photos, we were pretty much blasted with mist and water the whole time and the whole path was wet. Wego buses are around to take you around and the pass was provided by Marriott hotels, but otherwise, there may be a small fare. Table rock center has several other attractions to buy tickets for including a 4 d show, a journey behind the falls (like the cave of the winds on the US side), and Niagara’s fury.