Three Days in Toronto

As I sit writing this blog post we're currently in the middle of a heatwave here in the UK...I've set up shop in a shady spot in my garden with an ice lolly so for now I'm loving this weather {not so much when trying to sleep or commute!}. All of the heat got me reminiscing on my recent travels and I realised that I'd never shared most of my trip, only the few days we spent in Nashville which you can read about here.

Before we headed down to Nashville, we travelled from London to Toronto for two days in the city and one day in Niagara, so today I thought I'd share some of my favourite bits of Toronto. I won't share our entire weekend itinerary as to be honest, we were quite jet lagged, it rained solidly for one of the days so we couldn't see the CNN tower and spent hours trying to retrieve my misplaced passport...so these are the good bits 😂

We started off our trip with a little visit to Mildred's Temple Kitchen for Sunday brunch, which had come highly recommended to me. They don't take reservations and it's very popular with the locals, so expect a little queue...but let me tell you, it is so worth the wait. I wen't for the Blueberry Pancakes which have been named as the best pancakes in Toronto, and while I've not tried them all {I'd be the size of a whale!}, I wouldn't disagree with that name - they were divine. They're a cross between a pancake and a scone/cake sort of thing, and come topped with so much fresh cream and blueberry compote...it's quite a large portion but the good news is that Midred's have just added a single pancake on as a side dish - so definitely get that if something else on the menu takes your fancy, you won't regret it! 

I didn't find that there was a whole lot to do in Toronto apart from shop, eat and drink...which is exactly what we did! Our hotel was downtown right by the Eton Centre so a little browse around the shops was hard to avoid. We knew we were heading to the USA after Canada and the exchange rate is a little more favourable in Canada, so we did the bulk of our shopping there...hellooooo new leather jacket 👌🏻

If you're in Toronto and looking for a coffee stop, the city is packed with cute brunch spots, but if you're doing it for the 'gram then you can't miss Dineen Outpost...just look at the floor, and the coffee is pretty good too! ☺️

In the evening before dinner, we headed down to the ferry terminal to get on a ferry over to Toronto Island. If you're looking for an amazing view of the Toronto skyline {CNN tower included!}, then Toronto Island is the place to take that snap or just have a stroll around the park and watch the sunset. The ferry can get pretty busy in the summer though, so watch out for that. 

After we'd watched the sunset and it had started to get a little chilly, we headed back into the city for dinner at Hibachi, a Teppanyaki restaurant in the Thompson Hotel. The food was great, and having your dinner cooked and set on fire in front of you added a bit of theatre to the occasion - I'm not normally the biggest fan of Asian food but the scallops and chicken noodles were amazing.

On our final day in Canada, we hired a car and headed down to Niagara Falls, which is about an hour and a half away from the city. After picking up the car from the airport we started the drive which of course involved a little pitstop at Tim Hortons {how Canadian of us!}. When we arrived we hopped out of the car and were blown away by the view - The falls are something I've always wanted to visit and the view was just breathtaking, definitely worth the drive if you find yourself in Toronto! 

We walked along the edge of the falls, stopped for a quick photo and took in the view, before heading down to jump on one of the boats that take you right into the falls which was so exciting! We were given some rather fetching red rain ponchos which caused a lot of giggles...but we were so thankful for them later. Being a little pessimistic, I thought that the boat would take us kind of close but not actually into the falls, and how wrong I was...The boat took us right into the falls and we got absolutely soaked, it was like having someone pour buckets of water over you constantly with no break 😂. It was so worth it though to tick that experience off my bucket list, and it only took 3 days for my denim jacket to dry! 

After we'd been on the boat, we picked up some tourist bits {magnets, keyrings, some ice wine that they make out in Niagara} and headed for lunch at one of the restaurants overlooking the falls. The restaurant wasn't anything to write home about, but the view was spectacular! Niagara Falls was my favourite part of Canada and I'm so glad I was lucky enough to see it on this trip! However after we'd been around the falls, we had to head back to Toronto to pick up my misplaced passport...but the less said about that the better! 

xo Becky