2/21 - 2/22 - Toronto to Montreal
We pulled into Toronto a little before our scheduled time of 8pm. (Or 20:00, I'm about to get used to the 24 hour format.) James and Ginny were pretty happy to be home and were wonderful tour guides as we slowly made our way past the freights and between the skyscrapers into downtown Toronto.
Toronto Skyline from Below
We had discovered, through Viarail's email, that they had recently added a new overnight train from Toronto to Montreal. Since we weren't anxious to check in and out of a hotel for just one night, we changed our tickets. It took the clerk in Vancouver about half an hour to try to figure out how they'd priced our tickets. She finally gave up and just redid the whole thing. So we wound up paying only $60 to add the room to our fare. Cheapest night sleep on this trip. This left us with about three hours to kill in Toronto. James and Ginny insisted that it could be best killed on the CN Tower.
Toronto Skyline From Above - Royal York Hotel and Train Station in lower Right
They were right. Lisa wasn't sure that her vertigo would allow her to enjoy it, but she had a great time.
We were the only ones on the highest observation deck, some 1400 feet in the air. As soon as we got off the elevator, my cell phone rang. It was perfect timing. We were able to gush to Amanda about what a wonderful trip we were having and the outrageous view we had.
Hello, Amanda.
The camera doesn't do it justice. I wish we could have seen it at night and photograped it during the day. We watched iceskaters on rinks bathed in multicoloured lights, looked down on more skyscrapers than I'd ever imagined in one place and looked out over Lake Ontario (I think). When we had enjoyed our solitude enough, we descended a bit to the main observation deck and were serenaded by our spoon-playing waiter as we ate our first stationary meal since Vancouver. It didn't seem possible, but I was starved.
We returned to the train station and soon joined a very few other passengers on the rolling hotel to Montreal. We had to get accustomed to riding through densely populated areas and close the shade from time to time. We were asleep almost instantly. I forced myself to get up when I awoke around 5am.