annetti

Thanks, BAK. Unfortunately, with home exchanges, you can't always place yourself next to a neighbrhood market. We'll manage somehow, complain a bit to each other, get used to it and do a bit of walking. It will work out. Thanks for the Real Torontonian tour. We'll look forward to it.

goddesstogo

How far north of Eg are you? On Eglinton, between Bathurst and Chaplin Crescent, it's all apartments but from there westward to Avenue Road, there are lots of restaurants, a big Shoppers Drugmart (which also has a post office and some groceries), some posh clothing and home goods stores, and some interesting bakeries and delis. We just came home from having dinner in that neighbourhood.

At Lawrence and Avenue Road there's a huge Shoppers Drugmart (also with groceries and post office) and across the road is a lovely high-end grocery store called Pusateri's. It's pricey but good for special stuff and ready made food.

Do you remember the names of the mediocre Italian places you tried?

I can't really recommend pizza places because I love it too much and try to stay away from it but here are some nice spots in the Yonge/Eg area (north and south of Eg), here are some choices:

Grazie (very lively, friendly, pizza/pasta)
Pickle Barrel (upstairs in the Yonge/Eglinton Centre; a wide menu; the food is ok but it's handy because it's right next to the movie theatre)
Grano (one of our favourites; pasta and a lovely variety of dishes and a nice antipasto bar)
Tabule (next door to Grano and middle eastern)

It's a long way to lug bottles of wine but if you get a chance, go to the LCBO (that's the government operated boozeteria) at Summerhill and Yonge. It's an old train station and quite a gorgeous store -- definitely worth seeing. Plus they have a nice tasting room. Nice restaurants and kitchy shops in that neighbourhood as well.

Re our house, believe me, if I painted the wood I wouldn't miss it one bit. Our house can deal with the stereo system and big screen tv but you're right about the driveway. We share a driveway with our neighbour and it's so narrow that we literally have to buy our cars by taking a tape measure along with us so we can measure from mirror to mirror.

Morningglory47

Since you're here for 5 weeks, you might consider a monthly TTC pass - they should be for sale now.

I have a fold up bag which has wheels when unfolded for when I buy too much, it isn't heavy - I am carless, too - I've seen these bags for $12 in the dollar store at Yonge/Eglinton Centre.

You'll see NOW magazine everywhere - it's free and lists lots of events.

Pizzeria Libretto is supposed to be wonderful - they're on Ossington but are opening a new location in Greektown.

Toronto Field Naturalists have free walks - http://www.torontofieldnaturalists.org/v-walks.htm

Bruce Trail has hikes outside the city which requires a bus ride and a fee but walks inside the city are free http://brucetrail.org/ - I'd post the city walks if I could find my newsletter.

This coming Saturday is Nuit Blanche - events all night long - http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/. I plan to spend most of the night wandering around!

Let us know a good day to meet for coffee/lunch.

Morningglory47

Goddess - I painted the wood trim high-gloss white and don't miss it a bit...the house was built in 1922. It was a lot of work though - I'm a messy painter.

goddesstogo

It's even more work when you're a perfectionist painter like me, mg. I just painted the spare bedroom and getting the line around the top of the wall as perfect as possible was crazy-making -- especially in these old houses where the rooms have been painted a million times.

annetti, just to correct something above, Tabule isn't next door to Grano, it's one block south.

cantw82go

If you have a quest for great Italian food, then you should check out the Little Italy neighbourhood in downtown Toronto. http://littleitaly.sites.toronto.com/

There are so many interesting neighbourhoods to explore including the Distillery District, Kensington Market, the St. Lawrence Market (especially on a Saturday morning) and Bloor West Village and High Park. Toronto truly is a city of distinct neighbourhoods. It's a good thing you've got five weeks!

laverendrye

For restaurant reviews, you might want to check out Joanne Kates, the acerbic restaurant critic for the Globe and Mail. Here are her top 100 restaurants in Toronto:

http://www.postcity.com/Post-City-Ma...-2011/Top-100/

Morningglory47

More nabes: the Junction, Liberty Village, Leaside, Queen West, Ossington.

Goddess - I know what you mean - I always end up covered in paint. During TIFF, Benjamin Moore gave out $7 off coupons for their paint, Aura. I have several if you want one.

garyt22

You guys are great!... this is an example of the Fodors Forum at its best... right down to paint coupons... keep it up

goddesstogo

You're a doll, mg. I'll take a couple from you next time we're together. There's still the basement to paint!

annetti

GGG: I'm not sure of my East/West/ So/No, suffice it to say we are about 3 -4 blocks from Avenue and St. Clements. That should give you a rough idea of our location.

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions above. I am overwhelmed with everyones' generosity. So, thank you ggg, mg, Bak, laver, and gary and anyone else with the patience to read this!

We found the liquor store ggg mentioned - was able to sip a glass of a local Shiraz tonight. Also, found some real peanut butter. Next on the list is to locate pisateri's/ sounds like just the answer to our non cooking vacation.

We ate at La Vecchio's (sure the sp is wrong) our first day out. Like ggg, pizza is a rare treat for us and we seldom eat it, but were hoping for a better one. Dried out and tasteless and a bit burnt, too. Perhaps, an off day. The second place I don't recall, but it was not Grazie.

annetti

Okay, Day 3 in Toronto. Everyone else has spent their alloted time, seen the city and are ready for their two days in Niagara Falls. Sometimes, I think we do move a bit too slowly. And we were not on our way until past one in the afternoon.

Using our transit pass,we waved it at the conductor; it's great not to fool around with coins, we boarded the 61 bus to Eglington Station and took the subway south to Queen Station. Only 3 blocks or so walking, using the bus, it felt wonderful.Such a short walk and the weather was a low 70 degrees F. We crunched leaves and enjoyed the pretty autumn weather. I did not miss our car, though I did not feel the same way at the end of the day!

Within 20 minutes or less we were downtown. Except for the beautiful old city hall and a couple other bldgs, I could have been in San Francisco, Buenos Aires or Frankfurt.There are tons of high rise buildings and lots of shopping malls.

The old city hall is a Romanesque Revival bldg, now a courthouse. It is quite lovely and has a wonderful clock tower. Lots of people on the lawn taking photos. One couple asked my husband to take a photo of them,he was wary of the sun ruining their photo for them and he told them stand in front of the courthouse, which of course was what they wanted - a picture of them with the courthouse in the background. Reluctantly, he told them, the picture would be faded, but they were not deterred.

We walked inside, but you need to go through metal detectors, however, we saw the high ceiling just inside the doors and the lovely stained glass windows. It is a beautiful building, but courthouses in general are not happy places to visit. Lots of misery inside.

We had a little walking tourpamplet provided by our home exchangers and wandered around a bit. Entered St Trinity Church, N was a bit disappointed we missed the weekly
noon Monday concert, it was now past 2 pm. We then walked over to Osgood Hall, known for "Canada's Most Beautiful Room," a great library. Also, necessary to go through a metal detector. All those people hard at work at their computers and leafing through those old heavy legal books, made me very drowsy. We wandered a bit more, thought we'd try the dining room, it was closed, it was now past 4 and ended up the food court in Eaton Place. Ate 2 salads at Urban Herbivore, not very good -- all the vegetables had been sitting around since the morning and I could hardly tell the carrots from the arugula, however it must have been healthy?

annetti

We boarded the subway around 5 or so, hoping to avoid the evening rush hour, but it really was not terrible. No real crush. Torontonians are so civilized, people queueing for the buses, no pushing in the subway, people offering me a seat, I guess this baby boomer looked frazzled, but I declined, however my husband gratefully took the offered seat.

We had more of a sense where we were after we exited the subway, N wanted a dessert he had bought from Noah's (we found it easily), I bought some wine and we bought some more produce.
So we are managing, but the walk back to our house was tiring and it was then I was wistful for my California wheels. Shameful to say, I have two markets less than three blocks away from my California home, and in thirty years, I probably have walked to them twice! I, also drive to my local gym, also three blocks away. Shameful, is it not!!

BAK

St. Clements goes East-West

The CN Tower is south.


Avenue Road goes North-South, plus it changes its name twice.

Near you it is Avenue Road, then goes south and when it crosses Bloor Street (Beside the Royal Ontario Museum and the Gardiner Ceramic Museum) it changes its name to Queens Park Crescent, and curves around a park called Queens Park and the provincial parliament buildings, also referred to as Queens Park, and then goes south a block or so to College Street. As it crosses College, it changes its name to University AVenue.

Osgoode Hall is a few blocks south on what is now University Avenue.


PUSITERI'S -- there are three

Nearest to you is on Avenue Road, a few (petty long) blocks north of St. Clements. This is the original.

The secon one is on Avenue Road a couple of blocks north of Bloor Street, very close to the Bay subway station. If you findyourself watching Dragon's Den on CBC or Lang and O'Leary, on CBCNewsNetwork, The crabby guy names Kevin O'Leary lives upstairs over the grocery store.

You probably won't get to the third, which is many blocks north west of you at Bayview and York Mills, and is very new.

HALF DAY SEE "REAL" TORONTO

Get yourself to the East-West Bloor-Danforth subway.

(Aside: Bloor Street runs east - west, and changes its name to Danforth Avenue after it crosses the Don Valley gorge. Now its full of Greek stores and restaurants.

And College Street (East-West) -- Italian restaurants -- changes it name as it crosses Yonge Street and becomes Carlton Street and goes past Allen Gardens, the not-that-bad slums, and over to trendy Cabbagetown.

Back to the tour...

Take the subway west underneath Bloor Street to Jane St.

From Bloor and Jane walk est, toward downtown, through Bloor West Village. This is one of my old neighborhoods. Used to be very Polish, now backed with young families and old Piolish grandparently people.

Walk past the stores and you'll be beside some small apartments. Keep wal;king to High Park Avenue (traffic lights) and turn right - south and walk through giant High Park as far as you can go.

You'll emerge on The Queensway, a multi-lane east-west road with streetcar tracks running down the middle.

Take as 501 Queen Street streetcar eastbouind, back to downtown Toronto.

Depending on your feet...

Get off at Bathurst and walk east toward the big buildings until you get to a north-south route to take you home (subway, bus as per your TTC maps, experience) or stay on the street car until University Avenue.

The Bathurst to University stretch is another 20 years worth of my neighborhood.

BAK

annetti

Thank you, BAK, for what sounds like an interesting tour. Slowly, we are getting a sense of directions: what is north and south and east and west, though I'd hate anyone to test me formally.

Today, we covered more ground than in the preceeding days. By bus, subway, and tram, we traveled to the Distillery District, a National Heritage Site, a collection of brick Victorian Industrial bldgs now home to galleries, restaurants and gift shops. It took us about an hr to get there, but even with two transit changes, it seemed to go guickly. There's always something to see out the window or people to watch on the subway. On every subway car, there is always at least one sleeping passenger, who manages to wake up for their stop - I'm not quite sure how they manage it, perhaps they're cursing mentally that they passed their exit and I just don't know it! I suspect their internal clocks are well tuned.

The Distillery District is reminiscent of San Francisco's Giradelli Square without all the empty storefronts I saw there recently. I'm not much of a shopper so a lot of the appeal is lost on me. Very low tourist turnout for this Tuesday midafternoon. We shared an okay sandwich at one of the local eateries. We had forgotten our DD walking guide and were at a bit of a loss wondering if we had seen all the significant sights. I think we did okay.

The clerk at our sandwich shop recommended we walk up the Esplanade to St Lawrence Market. That sounded vaguely familiar. (I later checked my home exchanger's notes; he had recommended the market.

The walk up the explanade opposite a small city park, perhaps 7 or 8 blocks was very pleasant and also relatively unpeopled. The dog park was empty. The clerk told us that this area was unique to Toronto since it served a community with diverse incomes.

St. Lawrence market was semi-bustling; I'm sure the weekend is the fun time to visit with its outdoor farmers' market.We enjoyed browsing the food stands. N bought a bagel which he enjoyed; but he's not the bagel snob I am, I thought it too sweet for a sesame seed bagel, too much added sugar. I wish I was hungrier since Buster's Sea Cove appeared immensely popular and I would have liked to give it a try. Is it worth trying? It reminded me of my favorite Tusquedilla's in the Fairfax Farmers' Market (in LA) which serves non stop everyday. St Lawrence also reminds me of Vancouver's Granview Island which is great fun, too.

annetti

We found ourselves in Old Town, a very attractive part of Toronto with lot of cafes, boutiques and interesting buildings. I was taken with the triangular 5 storied,red bricked Flatiron building on 49 Wellington. Apparently, it was built by a distillery owner for offices in 1892. It now houses a cafe and offices. It is quite striking and is very popular for photos. The shape reminded me of a building in Lyon; I guessed the age of the Goodeham Bldg (the correct name for the flatiron bldg), but I was about 25 years off. Apparently, there is a similar bldg in NY (built later) that I know nothing about.

annetti

With just a few less questions for directions than the day before, we took the subway home, boarded the 61 bus and stopped at Pusiteri's. It is indeed a beautiful upscale store with lots of attractive offerings. I found my all time favorite brown rice sushi, so I was happy and we wandered around a bit. It was very crowded.
Thus, ended a very enjoyable day, one without the threatened rain, and far less walking as we learn to use the public transit system.

Now we need to master the recycling/ trash system for tomorrow and locate our home exchanger's hose so their outdoor plants do not languish.

irecommend

This is wonderful annetti to hear about your days in Toronto. We have loved a Pusateri for 25 years. A real treat.
We are located in Niagara on the Lake. If there is going to be a gtg in TO we would love to meet you, but alternately if you are coming here we could gtg here if you would would like. Mini tour also available!

irecommend

I also second the reco for Pizza Libretto. It is a popular spot!

goddesstogo

If you thought your bagel was too sweet it was probably a Montreal-style bagel. I find them sweet too. Like a donut with hardening of the arteries.