more of Toronto

Here are a couple more photos from my Toronto visit. Next time I definitely would like to check out the Royal Ontario Museum. The building itself was an interesting mix of modern edgy (no pun intended) design and the old classic stone building. Had I looked into the museum times beforehand I would've probably gone here first. The first set of photos below art from outside the Royal Ontario Museum, the others are buildings from the campus behind it.

a great Toronto cafe

After the shoe museum, I was look for some time to catch up on my emails and work on my laptop (not to mention rest my feet from having the carry the extra weight of that laptop!). I wandered into L’Espresso Bar Mercurio and I'm glad I did! Initally I was only going to get some tea but seeing their menu and the fresh and delicious sounding options I got lunch there as well! I enjoyed an incredible green tea (I'm not positive which one specifically that they offer) and then had their beet salad. It was a simple salad combination, containing arugola, beets, pear and shaved asiago cheese with a citrus oil dressing, but it was fantastic. I wish there was a place like this near me now.

The Bata Shoe Museum

The Bata Shoe Museum is dedicated to shoes, their design and their history, located in Toronto. I was skeptical about this one actually, since I'm not overly into fashion and I, compared to some women, am pretty low key about my shoes. But this was a fun stop. There was a floor with an exhibit highlighting more artistic shoe sculptures and designs as well as how shoes have appeared in artwork. Then there was a section dedicated to the American (and Canadian?) Indian's footwear. Across from that were shoes and accessories from the flapper era, this was easily my favorite set of footwear displayed. The bottom floors were a more general history along with rows of celebrity shoes.

A neat detail was added to the stairs connecting the floors. They included holes in the stairs so that people beneath the stairs could eye people's shoes!

Port Hope in Canada

I loved this stop while we were up north! We stayed at a great bed and breakfast that had the perfect mix of home comfort and modern hotel, plus the breakfast was delicious. If you're ever in the area you should definitely stay at Hill and Dale Manor.

We, once again, got into the town pretty late and just went straight to sleep. The next day we explored some of the local shops and found a couple of great pieces. If I can find the name of the shops I'll definitely post them for you here!

traveling in Canada

I recently got back from traveling in Canada with Jeff. We started in Montreal and then made our way to Toronto (stopping in a great little town in between called Port Hope). We weren't in Montreal long, coming in pretty late to the hotel and grabbing dinner at a great restaurant that I've unfortunately forgotten the name of. The next day I was able to check out the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal and wander around a little, checking out a couple churches and seeing a bit of the city, before we were on our way to Port Hope.