Toronto has some problems. The mayor is a joke, the landscape insipid, the great lake hidden behind a wall of condominiums, house prices outrageous. But there are some things the city does really well, especially in the summer. It holds more festivals and special events than you can shake a ticket at. On a warm fuzzy August evening, husband and I cycled the flat straight roads, many with bike lanes (or at least stripes of paint) to a large central public square named after David Pecault, who founded a highbrow arts festival (Luminato). Chairs were lined up in neat rows facing a towering projection screen which showed 'What's Up, Doc?', a movie far funnier than I remembered. (Spoiler alert: scene at the end, where Barbra says to Ryan, 'Love means never having to say you're sorry,' and Ryan says 'That's the stupidest thing I ever heard.') We drank beers (surreptitiously though; it wasn't that sort of crowd-- most people wielded lattes). And except for the beers, it was all free! Wow.
We didn't really want to cycle downtown en famille, though. So another day we took public transit. Very handy. On an early summer weekend with kids and bikes we headed downtown on the subway. Dodging quickly under the crumbling expressway (have to watch for falling concrete) and foraging behind a platoon of condo towers, we found the lakefront. After scything our way through some industrial wasteland we at last emerged onto Cherry Street beach, scruffy but cheerful, and continued eastward, along a rustic, car-free, and surprisingly un-busy bike path, to Tommy Thompson Park, and out the (at weekends) also car-free road to the lighthouse at the end of Leslie Street spit. It was a gorgeously warm long sunny afternoon and we stopped for ice creams and poutine (very Canadian) at a food stall on the beach. Then back to the subway, and home to the wagging, happy puppy.
And then there was the evening after my soccer match when we stopped along College Street, at 11:30 pm, kids, dog, husband and me, and sat on a sidewalk patio eating the most delicious gelato. Tiger Tails: orange sherbet with stripes of black licorice. Heaven in a cone.
Won the game, too.
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