mybigadventures.com

I've just been making a few tweaks before we take our trip and decided to add in a new feature - album comments. It seemed like a big job until a few recent changes that made it all possible so there you go. You can now add comments to blogs, albums and individual photos. The new comment link appears only on albums containing photo's and can be found under the album cover and summary which appears on the right of the screen. 

I've also added a few icons to give the site a bit of a facelift. If anyone's interested I'm using the fontawesome font set to generate the icons. Its really straightforward to use and there's lots of icons to choose from. I've got quite addicted and added them all over the place, many of which only Dani and I will ever see! That's all for now, let me know if you have any issues.

Today we decided to head for the old town. Before heading out, we stopped at the cafe across the road from the hotel for a bit of breakfast. Dani had a fruit bowl and chocolate twist, whilst I had a chocolatine. As we were getting served they seemed to have a bit of a problem with the juicing machine which meant we both got sprayed with some bits of carrot - not the best start to the day! Our first port of call was to be the basilica; we had made it to there yesterday, but only in time to find it had just closed. They have a light show on in the evenings at the moment, but we decided to head inside for a look around anyway and may come back another evening for the lights. Whilst in the queue to get in, an information person came past and gave us a leaflet about the old town. I turns out that there are a few streets that are lit up and there was a map with them marked out in yellow - we figured we'd head back later in the evening and have a bit of a wander. The basillica was really impressive inside with a magnificant altar piece. We stayed quite a while, having a good wander around and taking photos. 

Leaving the basillica we headed across the square to the bank which is Canada's first bank. They have a little museum inside, but it is still a working bank - it certainly looks a little bit Hogwarts inside - I was going to take a photo but the security man told me not to. We wandered back towards the hotel through the old town stopping for some lunch in Starbucks. Afterwards we looked in another building that also turned out to be an old bank, but this time had been converted into offices and a cafe in the old banking hall. We decided we would go to St Patrick's Basillica which is close to the hotel. Again it was very impressive inside, but much quieter than the Notre Dame Basillica. We took some more photos before heading back to the hotel. We took the lift to the top to have a look at the view from the terrace. It was pretty decent, but the skyline is not quite so iconic as some other cities we've visited. 

We had tea at a French/Canadian restaurant called Holders. It was really busy, but we were seated straight away. I had the beef bourguignon and Dani had confit de conard. It was very nice, and we shared a chocolate mouse for dessert. Afterwards we walked back towards old town to take some photos. The basillica was nicely lit and there was an animated film playing on the side of the building next to the bank. We walked along the yellow route looking at many of the other buildings that were also lit, back near the hotel we came across a water feature that seenmed to be on fire. It turns out that it's an installation called the 'La Joute' by Quebec artist Jean-Paul Riopelle. Every hour the fountain comes to life with a ring of fire surrounding it before being doused by the water fountain. We only caught the end, so dropped our stuff at the hotel and then went back out to see the next cycle from the beginning. By the time we got to the hotel it was gone 11 so we called it a night. We're going to have have a look at the parks tomorrow.  

We made a start today at Starbucks for a spot of breakfast, they had run out of the breakfast rolls we were after but ended up with an 'everything bagel' each and a cup of tea. Whilst there, we made use of the WiFi to download some local maps of the areas we're visiting as it turns out that our mobile data doesnt work here. We also picked up a paper map from the hotel and headed out for a bit of an explore. Our first destination was Ripleys Aquarium which is rated one of the top attractions in Toronto, so we went to see what all the fuss was about. We bought tickets on the way in although it turns out it can be a little cheaper if you book, you can also buy an adventure card that covers some of the other attractions in Toronto, but we gave it a miss.

The aquarium was really quite good with a particularly good moving travelator that took you around and then through the main tank in a series of glass roofed tunnels. Besides the huge range of fish, there were sharks, mantarays and turtles all swiming above and around us. It was really impressive. Heading back outside into what turned out to be a very bright sunny day we headed around to have a look at the CN tower which is next door. There was a long queue and we decided to give it a miss, at least for now anyway. Instead we had a wander around a number of old trains that you can wander around that are part of the exhibit by the train museum. We didn't go to the museum but did have a walk around the trains that were out, spotting a number of black squirrels that seemed to be residents in the area.

We had some lunch at a nearby Subway before visiting the Steam Whistle Brewery which is also located in the old train sheds close to the train museum. We went on the brewery tour which was fairly short but included a couple of beers to sample before having a sit in the beer garden. As the afternoon was getting on a bit we headed back to the hotel for a short rest before heading out once more for dinner. We ended up at a British pub for dinner, with each of us ordering the Sunday roast beef dinner off the specials board. Perfect!