One of our favourite weekends of the year – Doors Open Toronto – is just around the corner, and we’re looking forward to the rare and free access it provides to significant buildings and sites around the city. When we first attended in 2015, we found that one weekend just wasn’t enough time to see anything, and come the 2016 event, our list of places … Continue reading The Best of Doors Open Toronto
After 16 months in Toronto we finally made it to The Beaches! It was a beautifully sunny day yesterday so we decided to head down to the lake and check out the Winter Stations design competition that was ending this weekend. Winter Stations is in its second year, and aims to encourage people down to the beach in winter by transforming the lifeguard stations into art … Continue reading Winter Stations at The Beaches
Now in its 6th year, Toronto’s European style Christmas Market has been ranked by many as one of the best Christmas Markets in the world. Located in the historic Distillery District, the market features all the festivities you would expect, including Santa, a 54-foot Christmas tree, a mini Ferris Wheel and plenty of mistletoe. It’s the perfect way to kick off the festive season. We visited … Continue reading Toronto Christmas Market
The Santa Claus Parade is a Toronto tradition that’s been going 111 years. It’s broadcast on national television and over half a million people line the parade route ever year. Therefore it’s fair to say it’s a pretty big deal. So on November 15th we stopped what we were doing (looking for parkas in Hudson’s Bay) and headed over to University Avenue to catch a glimpse … Continue reading 5 things we did wrong during the Toronto Santa Claus Parade
Getting in the Pan Am spirit at the field hockey competition As anyone who lives in Toronto will know, the city and the surrounding area is the host for the 2015 Pan Am / Parapan Am Games. A mini-Olympics just for the Americas if you like. The hosting of these Games caused a lot of grumbling amongst locals. Concerns included the use of precious public funds, … Continue reading Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games
Today marks Canada’s 148th birthday and our very first Canada Day! Not sure how to celebrate, we consulted our colleagues, who recommended a Canada Day Eve trip to the Toronto Islands to watch the fireworks with the city skyline as a backdrop. So this was exactly what we planned to do but unfortunately the weather had other ideas. After much debate if it was even worth going … Continue reading Happy Canada Day!
Exploring the sights of Toronto that are normally off limits to the public Toronto is home to a number of great buildings which we normally admire from a distance, or walk past without too much thought. Doors Open Toronto, when more than 155 sites across the city open up their doors for anyone to come in and have a look around, is a great opportunity … Continue reading Doors Open Toronto
Visiting the Japanese Sakura cherry blossom trees in Toronto’s High Park Last week, on a late, sunny afternoon, we headed down to High Park to pay the blossoming cherry trees a visit. The beautiful Sakura trees were first donated to Toronto citizens by the Japanese ambassador to Canada, in appreciation of Toronto’s support for Japanese refugees after the Second World War. The most recent arrivals were trees … Continue reading High Park’s Cherry Blossom
Climbing the CN Tower for WWF Canada This morning we joined 6,400 others and climbed 1,776 steps to the top of the CN Tower. According to Wikipedia this means we climbed the tallest metal staircase on Earth! It took us 35 minutes to make it to the top – Stewart just scraping into 34 minutes as he left me to run up the last 2 flights. … Continue reading We made it to the top of the CN Tower!
On Monday night we did something crazy, after seeing a tweet from WWF Canada we signed up to climb the CN Tower! Yes, that same tower that Stewart walked on the edge of back in September, and features in many of our pictures of Toronto. The CN Tower is one of the world’s tallest towers; in fact from 1976 – 2010 it was the world’s … Continue reading We’ve signed up to the WWF CN Tower Climb – please sponsor us!
Brown Bear Travels 