Squirrels play hide and seek, Toronto - St James Park

A beautiful inner city garden, a relaxing spot for office workers to have their lunch. St James garden not only has majestic old trees, and manicured formal gardens, but, they also had a kitchen garden with basil, rainbow rhubarb, sage and rosemary growing.
Of course there was the resident squirrel, but he was a little bit shier than our previous golden-mantle squirrels we have come across, and darted from one garden bed to another. Then would disappear up a tree

Coming from the inland of Australia and we love gardening, we appreciate and envy the gardens we have seen in Canada. The annual flowers that we have seen, hanging baskets full of bedding begonias. Stunning borders.

St James Church

St Laurence Markets - Ivan the Watchmaker, Toronto

On a Sunday, The St Laurence Markets, cater for bric a brac, antiques, art deco glass and anything in between. We came upon the markets after our day in town and most stall holders were packing up for the day. One of the vendors had some beautiful old watches on display, and I took a couple of photos and we started to talk to him. His name was Ivan the Watchmaker. He showed us a watch made by Louis 15's watchmaker from around 1720. Ivan was very interesting, he pointed out the workings of the old watches.

Toronto - tall ship cruising Lake Ontario

When in a new city that we know nothing about, we will often find the local "RED" or "Hop on Hop off bus" to give us a general feel and find out what is happening in the city.  The stop was outside our hotel, so we boarded mid-morning and we were able to get seats on the top deck in the fresh air. We travelled past some extremely old suburbs, the buildings had long since needed renovation and some loving care.
The city seemed to be in a bit of a mess, with building and roadworks going on everywhere, especially in the business and tourist districts. But we soon learned that because the winters are so cold, down to minus 20 C and the ground freezes, that it is impossible to dig holes, or work outside, all the construction work is done in the summer months.
Toronto is on the edge of Lake Ontario, part of the great lakes system that separates Canada from the USA. A spectacular way to see the city and have a fantastic afternoon is to cruise the harbour in a tall ship yacht. We spent an hour and a half cruising in and out of the waterways, experiencing the birdlife and enjoying the peaceful scenery as we drifted past.

Our hotel is the King Edward, which has a magnificent foyer and public areas, including ballrooms and reception rooms for functions and weddings, but our room was quite tired.

Toronto Old Town Hall