Yet another big family vacation, (New York and) Canada #2

The original plan was to stay few days in New York and then rent a car and drive through the Arcadia National park. Later when Rannveig joined, the stay in NY was extended and the days on the road was limited to 5 days. We felt that the original plan was too hectic and found another route. Drive up through Finger Lakes area, around Lake Ontario sounded a good plan for that amount of time.

We picked up the rental at the airport to set the heading north. We picked retrieve the key, payed some extras like way toll brick. It took a while to find the car, the registration number didn’t match the number on the key itself but finally we found it by clicking the lock unlock several times and looked for blinking lights.

We drove away but we struggled hitting the right path to the highway. When I had driven through the same toll gate 3 times and finally found the correct path, we realised we had not activated the toll brick that we payed significant extra amount for. This will be expensive!

Flat Iron building, Toronto version.

Toronto skyline in the sunset.

Finally, we hit the right path and were on our way up north, 1st destination was Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes area south end of Seneca Lake. Watkins Glen is a charming small town, typical American town, I guess. We chose to stay in that town because there is a beautiful canyon (Glan Creek) starting in the town with a lots of hiking trails. I woke up early the first morning and went to the creek before sunrise. Soon I realised that it was definitely a good idea to stop here. Very narrow and deep canyon with river running through it and countless beautiful waterfalls.

Fortunately, we had booked two nights in the town, used the day to explore the town, took another walk in the canyon and spent some time at a Italian festival that was held in the town this week end. The next morning, me and Birna headed into the canyon again, me with the camera and Birna with her jogging shoes.

After having a breakfast, we drove away, set the heading to Toronto via Niagara Falls.

We stopped by on the Canadian side of the river to take a look at the famous falls. The view is indeed spectacular, but the amount of people was overwhelming, definitely worth the stop and expensive parking.

After an hour or two we joined again and headed further to Toronto.

Toronto City Hall

We didn´t know much about Toronto, actually didn’t have high expectations. We arrived quite late, but the city looked quite nice in the darkness. We found a parking house close to the hotel, which actually was an apartment in a university campus. Very nice actually in China Town, close to the city center. After putting things away in the apartment, I took the elevator up to the top floor (26th) and enjoyed the view over the city.

We didn’t move the car at all, used the metro to get around. Toronto proofed to be a surprisingly nice city and we ended up extending the stay one night.

We just used the time and walked around the town center, the old town. We took a boat to the island where you have a skyline view over the city.

Early morning in Toronto

On the 2nd day we walked by a theatre. The kids were still high after the Broadway shows and insisted on watching a show there again. We bought tickets for the kids and decided to take the tram to The Distillery Historic District, an area we didn’t know much about but was recommended. On the way we passed the Toronto version of the Flat Iron building that I had to photograph. The Distillery Historic District proofed to be an old industrial area recreated with focus on art and culture. Very charming area where we really wanted to stay longer, find a restaurant and have a good meal but it was already time to head back and meet the kids at the theatre.

We had extended the stay in Toronto and skipped the drive around Lake Ontario. The heading was set to Finger Lakes area again, just for an overnight stay at an inn close to Ithaca. We stopped in Geneva, a very charming town at the north end of Seneca Lace, drove further to Ithaca, took a short hike to the Ithaca waterfall and headed to the hotel after having dinner in Ithaca.

When we came to the hotel that looked good on the surface and had quite OK ratings, we were received by two very nice men. “Welcome to our Inn, you will be staying in our Royal Sweet today”. We became excited, sounded like an upgrade. Then they showed the kids a big DVD collection that was available for free, popcorn and soda included. Eiríkur picked up a some old superhero movie, popcorn and soda and looked forward to a relaxing evening in our sweet.

To cut a long story short, there was nothing Royal with the very standard room that had not been renovated for at least a decade. Two old TVs with even older DVD players were in the room that did not work, no surprise me considering that it was obviously not the most resent models.

Plan B was to find something on Netflix or something, but the internet was slow like a turtle, probably 128kb/s ISDN from the same time as the DVD players and TVs. The movie was obviously cancelled so we headed to the pool for an evening swim before hitting the sack. The pool was clean but the same standard, had not been renovated for decades, only few of the shower heads was working ets.

Anyway, all the extremely nice staff made up for all the disappointments and lack of renovation. After we left, we even wrote a positive review, something we rarely do. We ware honest and pointed out what could be better but highlighted the cleanness and 1st class staff.

Now it’s time to head home, after splendid time in USA and Canada. It was a bit stressful to drive into the big city again after the previous difficulties, but it was much easier to find the way to EWR than it was to find the way out.

We were tired and had a long night flight in front of us. We had the opportunity to upgrade our tickets to Pluss or Business class. Business class was a bit expensive, so we decided Pluss was good. Spacious and more comfortable seats, good leg space ets. Good to be able to rest and sleep before coming back home, the schools will start already on Monday and vacation is over. Now it is just to look forward to the next adventure.