Barrie

Barrie is a place in Ontario, Canada (about 50 miles North of Toronto) that I visited with my family on a recent trip to Toronto.

Barrie was a place we had seen on the Internet and quite fancied it as a place to live.

So on Thursday 9th August 2007, My wife, my two children and myself found ourselves in the Downtown Toronto Bus Terminal ready to catch the Greyhound to Barrie.

The trip on the 400 (which is an extremely busy road/highway) is quite uneventful, the only slightly interesting places you pass through are Yorkville and Vaughn.

When we first rolled into Barrie, we were a little disappointed (to say the least) as the Barrie Bus Terminal seemed to be in a slightly run down part of town, the taxi drive to pick up the hire car didn`t quell our fears as we drove down a busy road with totally uninteresting features on either side.

We were staying at the Days Inn which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere but was actually very close to everything, in fact Barrie itself was very deceptive, at first it seemed to be a large area but the longer you stayed there the smaller it became, it would probably take you ten minutes to cross from one side of Barrie to the other.

Barrie also became a much nicer place the longer we stayed there, the lake front (check out the spirit catcher) was very impressive with great beach's and enjoyable walks and the Georgian Mall was an excellent shopping experience. There are also some great places to eat like Moose Winooski`s http://http://www.moosewinooskis.com/menu_steaks.php

Also check out Kelseys for more great food http://www.kelseys.ca/en/index.aspx

All in all our stay in Barrie was very pleasant, I don`t think we will ever move there to live but would visit again, although we went in Summer there seems to be a lot of activities available in winter and that would possibly put a different spin on things.

Toronto, The Greatest City In The World

You can take your New York's and your Paris and as for Rome, the place has more Graffiti than a Manchester Comprehensive School, You can forget Tokyo, Sydney, London and even Cairo, the greatest city in the world is officially Toronto (OK, maybe not officially but it should be).
That's a pretty bold statement, I know (seen as I haven`t been to any of the other cities mentioned apart from London(too big) and Paris(very nice, but full of French people).
What has Toronto got to offer you may ask apart from freezing winters and boiling hot summers.
On the tourist side you have the CN Tower,the tallest free standing building in the world (no I don`t know what that means either, surely every building in the world is free standing, if not who's holding these buildings up) and that scared the shit out of me, I don`t like heights, my house has two floors and that's one too many for me, but I have to admit it was an experience watching all those kids jumping about on the glass floor thousands of meters above street level while I cowered away in the corner like a puppy on Bonfire Night.
The Toronto Islands are fantastic, peaceful beaches, glorious parks, an amusement park and you can hire bikes just like the Chuckle Brothers ride £14 a hour.
No cars, plenty of sand, grass and a nudist beach, how hip is that, brilliant.
Then you have the Sky dome now unimaginatively called the Rodgers Centre after a guy called Ted Rodgers (no not Dusty Bins mate). This is a great Baseball stadium where the Toronto Blue Jays play.
The game I watched with my family, the Jays went down 5-4 to the New York Yankees.
What I had to do was have a Hot Dog and a beer at the game although it did cost me about five times what it would have done outside. I was also a bit disappointed I wasn`t asked my age seen as the sign said over 30s only. Nice atmosphere, I suppose it was a bit of a local Derby and there were a lot of Yankee fans there (all extremely well behaved).
Then you have a sprinkling of Museums, old Castles (Casa Loma), great skyscrapers, old architecture (City hall, just take a look at those gargoyles) and new architecture( the new City Hall)

But what stands out from the crowd for me is the diversity of the place, the people who live and work there, the hot dog vendors, the taxi drivers, the shopkeepers, the waiters (and waitresses). You must visit all these great places, Chinatown, Korea Town, Greek Town, Little Italy, Little Portugal, Cabbage Town, the Village and so on, take a open top sight seeing bus and hop on and off all day (well recommended)

Toronto is also so friendly and I have never ever been to a big place like this and felt so safe.