Fort York has Canada’s largest collection of original War of 1812 buildings and is also the site of the Battle of York which took place in 1813. Located in the heart of downtown Toronto, Fort York is open year-round and offers tours, exhibits, period settings, and seasonal demonstrations. During our visit we enjoyed watching students representing the Canadian Fencible Regiment demonstrate military music, drill, musketry and artillery.
Allan Gardens was founded in 1858 by local politician George Allan who offered the Toronto Horticultural Society a 5 acre plot of land to develop a garden, the cast-iron glass domed Palm House was built in 1910, making it one of the oldest parks in Toronto. The conservatory is open 365 days a year with free entry and I found it to be the perfect tranquil escape from the busy city.
Last Wednesday we took advantage of the free entry the Gallery of Ontario offers every Wednesday from 6pm-9pm. We’ve been to the National Gallery of Canada a couple of times when we lived in Ottawa and this gallery is similar in the sense that it carries a lot of artwork by Canadian artists such as The Group of Seven, as well as a selection of work by Andy Warhol and other contemporary artists. But what impressed me more about the Toronto gallery was the building itself, I loved all the glass and wood, especially the curved wooden staircase that is a piece of art in itself.
We walked up this amazing curved wooden staircase to check out the view of the city
Antony and I have just celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary. Since Antony was working during the day we didn’t do much to mark the occasion, but we did exchange cards and go out for dinner and dessert in the evening. I thought it would still be nice to share with you some photos from the day.
If you missed it or you’re interested in checking out the photos from our New England wedding you can see the blog post here. I also did some posts on our honeymoon/road trip through Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine which you can check out here, here, here, here, and finally here.
A little message my mum drew and emailed to me on the morning of our anniversary
The cards Antony and I gave to each other, which I think sums us up pretty well. I also made him this origami bird because the symbol for 1 year of marriage is paper
We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner called Grazie, and even though we were really full we were so desperate to try Sweet Jesus that had just opened in Midtown that we managed to squeeze in some soft serve ice cream for dessert
I had the Cookies Cookies Cookies & Cream and Antony had the Rocky Road Rage, I think I preferred his ice cream to mine, but looking at this menu again I can see several other flavours calling my name so I’m sure we’ll be back
Antony fines it very hard to not eat the food until I’ve taken a photo, as you can see he’s already digging in. We both got the mini size which I think was big enough, and Antony had his in a cone and I chose a cup
We don’t really drink champagne which is why I only bought a small bottle but I thought it would be nice to do something traditional and a bit fancy, plus I really wanted to use these new glasses I bought from the Cocktail Emporium
This is part of the wedding gift my sister gave us, rather than just having the photos printed and sticking them in an album ourselves she thought it would be nice to have them professionally printed in a book. We used the company Artifact Uprising and I spent two days choosing the photos and text, and creating the layouts of each page. I think it was well worth the extra effort and we are so pleased with how it turned out
Heres some of the pages from inside. You can choose whether you want a full page image or a couple of smaller images together. If you’d like some more inspiration and examples of what you can create go to their Instagram account
So Toronto is huge, it’s the biggest city I’ve ever lived in and it’s safe to say it’s going to take me quite a while to explore all the neighbourhoods and shops this city has to offer. Saying that, I feel quite confident in saying that I’ve already found one of my favourite stores.
I visited the Cocktail Emporium three times in the first two weeks of living in Toronto and I could easily go in every week, as someone who has dreamed of putting together a beautiful Art Deco bar cart with all the trimmings for quite a while now this store is heaven. They describe themselves as “Toronto’s first and only one-stop shop for everything bar and cocktail related” and they really do have everything you could possibly need, the only problem is you think you know what you want until you go in and see that they have it in silver, gold, and rose gold! and then you’re really spoilt for choice. I even fell in love with their tiki selection, which I never thought I would be interested in.
They have two locations, which is why the photos below are split into two sections and I would highly recommend checking it out even if you don’t drink alcohol it’s still a beautiful store to visit.
BYOB Cocktail Emporium, 972 Queen Street West, Toronto 
1\2 oz. Cocktail Emporium, 20 Kensington Avenue, Toronto 
East or West, Home is Best 