For our 20^th anniversary, Dave wanted to go somewhere with lower temperatures than Texas – I readily agreed of course! We settled on Toronto for several reasons, among them – Dave had never been there, I was here once – 44 years ago, our honeymoon 20 years ago was to Canada, it’s a non-stop flight from Houston, the Astros were playing the Blue Jays and Toronto was one of my six remaining MLB cities in which to watch an MLB baseball game (I still need Washington, Miami, Minnesota, Arizona, and Seattle).

For our honeymoon, we’d flown to Calgary, driven to Banff and Jasper, played golf among the moose, taken the train from Jasper to Vancouver, ferried over to Victoria Island, stayed at the Fairmont Empress and had “tea”, visited The Butchart Gardens, then drove to Campbell River for salmon fishing. Whew!

We won’t try to cram as much in 20 years later! We will spend 5 days in Toronto with a couple of day trips to the Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake, then head to the small town of Collingwood on Georgian Bay (east of Lake Huron) for a 2 days.

Day 1 – Astros vs. Blue Jays

We arrived the afternoon of the day before our anniversary in order to go to the Astros vs Blue Jays game that evening. I’d found tickets in the Blueprint Lounge section just to the first base side behind home plate for a very reasonable price on Seat Geek (the official MLB ticket reseller site). Food and non-alcoholic beverages are included in the ticket price, which I didn’t even realize when I selected the tickets making it an even better deal! The Blueprint Lounge area, however, is currently being renovated, so instead of the normal buffet service in an area behind the seats, you just gave your order to the wait staff in your seat and then it was brought to your seat. Yay! You didn’t even have to miss any of the game (or pre-game) to get food! We decided to be low-key Astros fans and try to blend in with the “Blue” Jays by wearing Navy Astros polos with the orange star, but there were a lot of Astros fans there in orange and rainbow jerseys. We walked around the stadium before the game.

Unfortunately, the Astros lost, so I’m rethinking my plan to try to see the Astros play in the stadiums I still need to visit! LOL! Especially as I write this a couple of days later and they managed to win 3 out of 4 games here – only losing the game we attended!

The Rogers Centre opened in 1989 as the Sky Dome and has a hotel attached to it with rooms looking out on the stadium from the outfield. It was the first stadium with a fully retractable roof. It was renamed the Rogers Centre in 2005 when Rogers Communications purchased it and the Blue Jays. The hotel is centrally located for tourist activities and is currently a Marriott. I’ve accumulated a ton of Marriott points over the past 30 years, so I used points to book a 5-night stay (for the price of 4 nights – yahoo!). While it would be fun to have a room overlooking the field, they are quite pricey, and I’d rather spend that money on great seats (actually a lot less money!) and other experiences.

Day 2 – Toronto Waterfront & Railway Museum

For our anniversary on July 3^rd, the only thing we had planned in advance was dinner. The weather forecast had been predicting a fairly high chance of rain, so we’d decided to wait and see what the weather actually did before deciding what to do. We slept in and went to a late breakfast (with the view from right field above), checked the weather and discovered no rain was predicted until 3pm-ish. We decided to walk down to the waterfront and take one of the harbor tours that goes through the islands. We selected Toronto Harbor Tours and got tickets for their next tour time at Noon. We had about 30 minutes to kill, so walked along the waterfront checking it out.

As we were walking back to get in line for our harbor tour, we met a couple of families walking towards us. One of the men asked if we went to Baylor (notice we were wearing BU gear in the picture above). He had graduated from Baylor’s Truett Seminary and one of the women had done her undergrad at Baylor, too! Of course, he knew our good friend Alan who teaches at Truett. It’s a small Baylor world – but wherever we go, we usually find a “bear in the wild”!

The harbor tour takes about 50 minutes or so going along the waterfront checking out the Toronto skyline towards the Toronto City Airport which is on a man-made island created from dredging the harbor. It then continues into the Toronto Islands (not man-made) which today are mostly parklands and conservation areas. However, there are a few houses with private ownership which remain, but they have very strict rules for selling and in fact cannot sell at a profit! Apparently, there is a 75-year waitlist! There is also a marina with lots of houseboats, however, they have to be pulled out of the water in the winter due to ice, so people only live there 8-9 months in the year. The indigenous people of the area believed the islands to have special healing powers and would take their sick and elderly there.

There are water taxis and ferries to take people to the islands to enjoy the parklands. It’s a great way to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The private Island Yacht Club is based on Muggs Island. Founded in 1951 by a group of Jewish sailing enthusiasts who had been turned down for membership in other clubs, they chose to also give consideration for membership to non-Jews becoming one of the first private clubs without a race or religion requirement. Coming back out of the islands were more excellent views of the Toronto skyline.

After our harbor tour, we walked around the area some more, visited the outdoor Railway Museum located at the old Roundhouse, and found an ice cream stand for lunch! We’d had a late breakfast and didn’t want to eat a lot before our dinner later.

My father, Don, loved trains, so I was obviously thinking of him as I took these pictures, then I saw that the gift shop is in the old Don Station (in above group of pics)! That made me really miss him!

Day 2 Evening – Anniversary Dinner

Our anniversary dinner was at Canoe, a Michelin recognized restaurant, on the 54^th floor of TD Bank Tower. The service, food, and the views at Canoe were great!

We selected a nice Malbec from the Mendoza region of Argentina (my go-to red wine). Then started with bread and salted butter along with the onion soup – served in an onion which came with a refill in a wooden vessel. It was unique! For mains, Dave had the “ontario pork chop” served with morel farci, roasted asparagus, black garlic, barbequed baby gem, and Madeira jus, he also added the pommes frites; I had the “salmon + spot prawn” served with zucchini flower, spot prawn bisque, spiced aubergine, basil purée, and shaved zucchini. For dessert, Dave had the “black forest gâteau” (preserved Ontario cherries, vanilla parfait, Chantilly, 70% dark chocolate) along with a Niepoort 20 year tawny port, while I had the “white chocolate cheesecake” (elderberry, lavender cracker, sablé Breton). After all, we only get one 20^th anniversary! Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of dessert!

The evening ended with a beautiful sunset over the city.

Totally stuffed afterwards, I requested to walk back to the hotel although we’d taken a cab to get there because it was muggy with a chance of rain. But, it wasn’t raining after dinner and it was cooler. It was a leisurely 20-minute walk but no hills like in Portugal! We met a lot of Blue Jays fans walking away from the stadium and knew the game wasn’t over yet, so figured that was a good sign for the Astros. We got back to the room in time to catch the final couple of outs on TV for an Astros win 9-2!

A great first two days overall, but we have a lot more coming!