Toronto, Ontario

Leaving the natural beauty of the Thousand Islands trail behind, it was time to deal with city life again as we hit Toronto at the far west of Lake Ontario.

Toronto is a huge city, Canada's largest, and one of many diverse neighbourhoods and appearances; it's been represented in movies as New York, Chicago, Washington DC and even Moscow.

Our half-day excursion centred around the downtown area.  First stop the CN Tower, Toronto's looming and not-particularly-attractive-up-close tourist trap.

By "trap", I mean that once you get inside, you discover that it costs $32 (plus tax) get to the lowest possible viewpoint.  The homeless people sitting by the front entrance should have been a dead giveaway really; I suspect they recently paid for dinner for two at the restaurant at the top of the tower and then realised they couldn't keep up with their mortgage repayments.

In fairness, the view of the city is outstanding:

They also have those floor standing binoculars that you sometimes see at the seaside:

They will cost you another $2 to use though so apparently once you're in, any additional viewing pleasure is charged by the mile.

We joined a large group of tourists admiring the tower's famous glass floor.  24 square metres of solid glass, 1,122 ft above ground level, the glass can allegedly support the weight of 14 hippos...

...Hands up if you thought a fat joke was coming then.  Too easy.  Anyway, I find it curious that they don't provide any details of how the glass floor is joined to the rest of the concrete flooring.  I'm no engineer but I would think, if anything, that would be the weak point.

Unfortunately, just as I was about to test my theory by walking on the glass, I remembered something critically important that needed doing over the other side of the room (look, I may be tall but that doesn't mean I have to like heights!).  Sharon managed to take a photo looking down through the floor of doom though:

Other attractions in the tower include a fairly outdated "4D" simulator ride where you ride on a log through the Amazon rainforest (I don't know what the connection is either), and the chance to see your lunch again by doing the EdgeWalk, a hands-free, outdoor stroll around the circumference of the roof, supported by a short rope (like what Karl Pilkington was challenged to do at the Macau Tower in An Idiot Abroad 3).

Now for this week's caption competition:

After the tower, we were drawn to the nearby Steam Whistle Brewery, which was pumping out "Avicii - Levels" on their outdoor terrace.  The party was a private function, but it turns out they offer tours of the brewery with a couple of free beers thrown in.

The premise of education provided the perfect cover for a bit of afternoon drinking and to be fair, the tour was very interesting and the beer very delicious.  They only use water, barley, hops and yeast in the making of their ale, as opposed to the hundreds of chemicals used by many other brewers, and they use a lot of European brewing techniques, so the taste was a bit closer to home.

I liked it enough to grab a couple of 6-packs on the way out.  Look how content I am, I'm a man of simple pleasures really:

With a few ales inside us and feeling slightly like a typical "Brit abroad" with 12 cans under my arm, we headed back to the subway and left Toronto to enjoy its evening.