On December 14th, the Walking Club took its customary Christmas Season walk in downtown Toronto. In the past, we have attended a free noon-hour concert of Christmas music at Roy Thomson Hall, but this year there was no such concert. Cutbacks? Anyway, we managed to fill that time by visiting more sites than usual.
We started at the Eaton Centre, the highlight of which was the huge tree in the centre of the mall. Apparently, it is the tallest artificial tree in the country and is well worth a visit.
Joan and I returned later that week with our family at night and discovered that the tree puts on a show about every half hour with music, lights, and falling snow. We were taken by surprise, so I was able to take only a couple of shots of the tree changing patterns.
Leaving the Eaton Centre, we walked one block over to City Hall. There we found the large tree used in the Cavalcade of Lights.
The view inside City Hall showed some interesting angles.
Nathan Phillips square hosted a dragon which overlooked the busy skating rink.
Crossing Queen St., we noticed the closure of the street (for the next 6 years) for the construction of the Ontario subway line.
We proceeded down Bay Street to see how the big banks observed the season. On the way, the intersection of Bay and Adelaide was closed for the installation of streetcar tracks for a detour of the Queen streetcar. Authorities have known for over a year that Bay and Queen would be closed but they are just now getting around to replacing/repairing the tracks on Adelaide that were allowed to deteriorate over the years.
Scotiabank Plaza had several stunning displays in the lobby.
The next bank to visit was the Bank of Montréal. Note the bank’s colours on the tree.
We passed an interesting display of cans of soup in the form of the bank’s logo. I imagine that these are for a food charity the bank supports.
Kitty-corner to BMO is the CIBC head office. There were two trees outside that really stand out at night.
And inside . . . .
After the visit of the big banks, we headed south to the Royal York Hotel to view the gingerbread creations of their chefs.
The lobby was nicely decorated too.
By this time we were hungry, so we headed along Front St. to the St. Lawrence Market where we grabbed a quick bite, either a veal sandwich or the famous back bacon on a bun.
Nearby Berczy Park had some of its animals decorated with red ribbons and a pile of gifts for dogs.
At this time, several of the original twelve walkers had left but a hardy group of five continued east through Crombie Park to the Distillery District to take in the sights of the Christmas fair. The area was quite busy with many people taking in the festivities and buying some of the special items for sale.
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 