On Dragon Hill: Art Gallery

Thursday, February 8, 2024

Bamboo & Gargoyles

The Bamboo Garden

We set out today to find a bamboo garden at The University of Toronto. Yup, another suggestion from that “111 places” book, and although we did find the garden we ended up finding a lot more as well. I find this often happens when you set out to explore on foot; you see things you did not expect.

The bamboo garden was a lovely green space within the Terrence Donnely Centre on the University of Toronto campus. Within the garden are wooden platforms with seating areas for students to enjoy. The greenery of the bamboo was lovely in the rather dreary Toronto winter.

University College Building

Rather than going back out onto College St. and making our way home, we decided to walk through the Medical Sciences Building and discovered a hallway where photos honoured all the graduating classes of the Medical Students, and we spent a while searching the photos to see when females started to graduate with Medical degrees. As far as we could tell, 1907 was the first year with women in the photos.

We exited out the back of the building onto a large green space surrounded by beautiful old brick and stone university buildings. We had walked through here previously while looking for another attraction, but today I decided to walk around and look closer at all the buildings. I was particularly interested in the architecture of a large building directly across the green.

Creatures "hanging around"

I discovered that this was the University College building; the original building of the University of Toronto. I first came to a round building at one end and discovered that the detail in the stonework was really spectacular. The stone trim around the windows and the roof were all completely different. All carved in stone and from a distance looked identical but a closer examination showed that every one was a different design. The more I looked the more amazing details I discovered. The gargoyles in the corners were especially interesting.

We couldn’t get into the round building, but a door gave us access to the main building and inside was just as amazing. The wood trim around every door and window had corner blocks each with a unique carved design. Everywhere I looked I saw repeated architectural details with completely different carvings.

Sculpture of chipboard & shingles

We then found signs indication an art gallery and twisted and turned our way to it, where we enjoyed some really interesting artwork.

After an interesting day exploring the University of Toronto I came home and did some research on the University College building, discovering that it was built in 1856, burnt down in 1890 due to a tipped Kerosine lamp, and rebuilt in 1892. The building was designated a National Historic site in 1968, and “revitalized” in 2018. It really is an amazing building and a nice way to end a day exploring Toronto.

Every divider was a different design

Every column was a different design

Every column top was different

Ceiling detail

Banister beast

More columns . . .

The round house

University College Building

Monday, September 12, 2022

Turning Tourist

That tower is 149 steps high

Okay, it had to happen, we have been here over a week enjoying the south of France, and so far other than exploring and getting to know the town of Narbonne, we have not really done anything. Today we actually went to one of the “attractions” in the town and paid to visit it.

Like many old European towns, Narbonne has a beautiful central Town Square, and on this square along with a Roman archaeological site and numerous little French Cafe’s there is the Archbishop’s Palace and the Saint Justus and Saint Pastor Cathedral. Two €6 tickets gave us access to both the Palace and the cathedral. You do not actually need a ticket to get into the cathedral, but the ticket gives you access to areas that are not open to the general public.

Not a very scary dungeon!

Lots of stairs

First stop was the dungeon which was just a big round room with comfy chairs. I was expecting instruments of torture and empty chains hanging from the walls but you could imagine it I guess. From the dungeon, we climbed to the tower in the Madeline Chapel, 149 slippery steps up a narrow spiral staircase to the top of the tower overlooking the square and the rest of the town. The climb was worth it to get the spectacular views out over the town and as expected I took WAY too many photos. Look for them at the end of the post.

You then have to climb back down those 149 steps, so I was a bit disappointed to

Just one of the beautiful rooms

find that the next exhibit, the Archbishop’s actual former apartments in the palace which is now an art gallery was up four floors or 89 more steps to climb. We have been to some nice art galleries on our travels, and I have to say, the paintings here were nothing special, but the actual rooms they were displayed in were amazing, each one different and all really spectacular. I found myself looking at the rooms more than the actual paintings.

The Cathedral

The Palace is attached to the Cathedral and is accessed via arched doorways, a cobbled street and a beautiful archbishop’s garden & terrace. The gargoyles protecting the Archbishop’s garden were amazing, and would have scared away most garden pests I suspect. Like most cathedrals this one was beautiful with large tall stained glass windows and high arched ceilings. Oh, and more stairs, up another spiral staircase to the treasury which now displays historical artifacts none of which were especially interesting.

So, our first real tourist event added 7.6 km to our French total, and 8,639 steps of which over 400 were climbing up and down stairs.