On Thursday, John and Dar were preparing their house for the party while Nicole, Torsten, and Michal spent the day in Toronto. We planned to visit two major attractions: the CN Tower and the Hippo Tours. The CN Tower is a popular tourist attraction and is often crowded during the day, so we headed there in the morning.
The CN Tower is 553 meters tall. For a long time, it used to be the tallest free-standing structure in the world. It's both a communication and tourist tower.
After obtaining tickets, going through security, and waiting in a queue for a short while, elevators took us to the main deck level 346 meters above the ground. But our first target was even higher - we first went to the Skypod. The Skypod is only accessible through one pretty small elevator, so we had to wait a while until it was our turn. This is when the decision to go to the CN Tower in the morning paid off; shortly after we arrived, the wait times for the Skypod increased significantly. It is said that they can get up to two hours. We only had to wait about 15 minutes.
The Skypod is the smaller and higher of the two bubbles. It lies 447 meters above the ground and it offers a fantastic view through its glass windows. You can see as far as Niagara Falls!
Torsten was brave to go to the Tower with us even though he is not very keen on heights. Kudos!
Looking south, you will see the Toronto Islands and the Waterfront and Tommy Thompson parks.
Turning counter-clockwise, through the east, north, towards the west, you will see most of downtown Toronto - and beyond.
Continuing to turning counter-clockwise, now looking to the west, you will see the Exhibition Place that we visited on Monday.
Just before finishing the full turn, you will see the Toronto City Centre Airport, unofficially called Toronto Island Airport. It is used for general and private aviation and it contains a seaplane base. When we were in the tower, a plane was taking off, and it was definitely an unusual experience to see a plane from the above!
Apart from looking to the distance, it was also possible to look down. Among other things, we saw the Rogers Centre, the Union Station (the major rail station in Toronto).
After spending a while on the Skypod, we returned down to the main deck. The main deck lies 342 meters above the ground and contains an outdoor observation deck, the glass floor, and a restaurant. It is the bigger and lower bubble on the Tower.
Michal and Nicole immediately went to check the glass floor. On the last picture, you can see the how the view down looks!
The outdoor observation deck on the main deck is like a balcony, except a few hundred meters higher! There was a safety net installed, so most of the pictures do not look very well, but the personal experience was great. We could feel the wind. And just like in the Skypod, we took pictures of the surrounding area from the outdoor observation deck.
Before leaving, we took some more pictures of ourselves. The fact that Michal is smiling that much is surprising, but the fact that Torsten and Nicole were kissing is definitely not!
Before continuing to the Hippo Tours, we stopped at East Side Mario's again to listen to some Dirty Dancing Music. And as a bonus, since we were already there, we also ate lunch. Remember the next picture carefully; it's very unusual to see Torsten wearing pieces of clothing that are not completely and totally black!
Then we bought tickets for the Hippo Tour and in the hour or so wait before our ride was due, we went to the Royal Alexandra Theatre, where Torsten and Nicole bought tickets to the Dirty Dancing musical for the evening.
Copyright notice: Text, images, and videos copyright by Michal Řeháček, Nicole, Torsten, John Philip, Darlene Sine.