Yesterday, JJ and I headed down to Harbourfront to check out a nautical/maritime festival.  I have not actually been to Harbourfront Centre for some time, and was surprised to see these new motifs all over:

Kinda cute, eh?

I also made some new friends while down there:

The Nautical Festival in itself was a bit of a disappointment.  There were some tall ships, both Canadian…

…and American…

… but we thought there would be more.  Nonetheless, the scenery was quite beautiful for the most part, if rather stormy:

That photo was taken at 2:35 p.m. or so and I was freaked out by the pink sky.

It then started to rain but then the geese came back:

…so we knew it was safe to emerge again

One thing that bothers me about the Toronto waterfront, though, is that it has really been destroyed by development.  For example, turning 90 degrees from the photo above, here is the view:

… and this is a photo I took of one of the ships above from (to me) the wrong angle:

But it’s still not impossible to see what things might have looked like in Toronto before the condomaniacs took over.  JJ talked me into going on a wee boat tout, and I was happy for that – at first.  Here are some of the views we saw of the Toronto Islands:

The water was very still… one day I will become a great photographer and get a true mirror shot in the water, but I was quite happy with this one…

… and here is one of the swans which inhabit some of the Islands:

But, eventually and inevitably, we had to get back to civilisation as we know it

Another thing that saddened me – the second half of the 45 minute boat tour was taken up with describing most of the corporate buildings which line the waterfront coming into Toronto.  Anyone coming to Toronto as a visitor and taking such a tour should really, really know that we have far more to offer than the Bank of Montreal Tower, the Toronto-Dominion Bank towers, etc. etc.

(Having said that, I did get a giggle out of the admission by the tour guide that most of our postcard photos have been subject to airbrushing to get rid of three particularly ugly buildings right in front of the CN Tower.  I would show you the true photo but I was laughing too much to take one, actually.)

Anyway, I’d like to leave you with this lovely photo of the Toronto waterfront… do come and visit, and ignore the whining above.

Happy Monday!

Kristina