Climbing More Stairs

Stairs. . . .

Lately Regis and I do not do stairs very well. I blame my mother, as I have inherited some of her arthritis and my knees and hip do not like stairs. COVID delays have only allowed Regis to get one cataract fixed so far, so her vision is not the best and with one fixed eye and one bad one, her depth perception is way off, particularly at ground level, so she does not see sidewalk cracks or stairs very clearly. The condo here is on six levels, and we are constantly going up or down stairs to do anything, so stairs are unavoidable. 

You would think we would know better than to go visit an attraction with lots of stairs, but no, we decided to visit Casa Loma castle here in Toronto yesterday. 

Baldwin Steps . . 110 of them

In order to get to the castle, you can drive, but we decided to take public transit which we enjoy using here in the big city. Out of the subway station we walked up Spadina Rd., and ended up at the Baldwin Steps. As the name implies . . . . more steps, 110 in fact leading up the hill to the castle. 

And the castle itself . . . . . wide elegant central stairways, but also narrow wooden stairs, secret passageways with even narrower stairs, and rickety spiral stairs to climb into the towers. Then the worst of all, an underground tunnel with uneven surface and dim lighting and images projecting onto the walls and floor. But with a lot of, “watch out, one step down.”, “three steps up”, or “careful, narrow stairs!”, we made it through and actually enjoyed the visit to Casa Loma very much. 

Casa Loma

Casa Loma really is a spectacular attraction. Built in 1911 by financier Sir Henry Pellatt for 3.5 million dollars, it was the largest private residence in Canada. It sits on top of a hill, providing a lovely view over the city of Toronto. The actual design envisioned by Pellatt was never finished completely. For example, he planned to have three bowling alleys in the basement but only one was finished, and the third floor was never completed while he lived there. Unfortunately, the castle cost so much to build and with the financial troubles of the great depression Pellatt only lived in the house for 10 years before he had to give it up. It is currently owned by the city of Toronto and is leased to an entertainment company and used at a setting for movies. 

And we did climb the spiral stairs to the top of the tower to enjoy the views over the city. A great adventure in Toronto. 

Anyone for Tea?

An old wreck parked at the entrance

Tunnel to the Hunting Lodge & Garage

View from the tower

A well stocked wine cellar

Antique Shooting Brake

One of the 50 phones in Casa Loma originally

A rather elaborate bed

Indoor plumbing in "My Lady's bathroom"

Not sure what this was all about?

Meeting Up

Waiting at the Cafe

One of the coolest things when you travel is when you get together with friends from home when you are thousands of miles away in a foreign country.

When we travel, we usually stay in a place for a good period of time, often for a month and we try to rent a place with an extra bedroom so there is room for people to come visit. The first time this happened was in Spain. This was our first month long rental and we had a three bedroom apartment half a block from a Mediterranean beach. Our friends Brain & Andrea came from Egypt to spend a few days with us. We were sitting out on the balcony when they pulled up in their Rental car. It was just so cool to see them suddenly see us and start waving.

Since that first “meet-up” we have gotten together with people all over the globe, and it is always a nice feeling when you suddenly see someone you know coming towards you in a place thousands of miles away from home. It is not quite the same when you go meet someone in an airport or train station; it is when you suddenly recognize a friend or family member coming down the street towards your temporary home away from home.

Our apartment here in Porto, Portugal is situated on a steep hillside on the Douro riverbank. There is

Our Porto Apartment

no street access to the apartment so you either have to go up from the riverbank 100 steps, or down from the top a twisting winding 100 steps. We were in Braga, a town about an hour by train from Porto, and the children were flying from Toronto overnight to get here. Regis and I arrived at the Porto train station and walked to the steps leading down to the apartment. We were early, so the apartment was not ready yet, so we found a little cafe on the steps and piled the luggage up out of the way and sat with a beer and a coke to wait. The children had texted us to say they had arrived and were “UBERing” towards us.

Stairs Down

As we sat in the lovely Portuguese sunshine chatting with another tourist from Holland and watching the “cook” of the little cafe grill sardines on a tiny little charcoal barbecue balanced precariously on one of the steps , the children suddenly appeared struggling down the stairs with their luggage. Waves and hugs later we were all together here in Porto. A very cool experience!

Perched on the hill

The View From The Apartment

Some of the Locals were not happy with our visit

The hillside!