Toronto Travel: Ireland Park with view of downtown

This video clip was taken on September 1, 2007 during my cycling trip to see the Canadian International Airshow which is always held on Labour Day weekend. I started in Toronto's east end, cycled in on Gerrard Street through the colourful neighbourhoods of Little India and Toronto's eastern Chinatown, both of which feature ethnic cuisine, vegetable, fruit and retail stores. Then I crossed the Don Valley Parkway and cycled by Regent Park, a public housing development from the 1950s and 1960s which has experienced significant social problems in the last few decades. A portion of Regent Park has been demolished to make way for a brand-new mixed housing development that will include low-income housing as well as middle-income housing. Right across the street from Regent Park is Cabbagetown, a neighbourhood that was originally settled by Irish immigrants that started to be settled as early as the late 1840s after a wave of poor immigrants left Ireland due to the Irish potato famine. These poor residents grew cabbage in their front yards, hence the name Cabbagetown. In the last few decades Cabbagetown has become increasingly popular and has seen extensive gentrification.

I cycled through the relatively poor downtown east side to the intersection of Gerrard and Yonge; Yonge Street is the east-west dividing line in Toronto and used to be the longest street in the world. I then continued west on College Street, past Queen's Park and the University of Toronto to the intersection of College and Dundas, the northern end of Toronto's Chinatown. Further west I reached Little Italy, one of Toronto's most popular entertainment areas, where the streets were block off for the Fiera festival. All the restauranteurs and merchants were still setting up shop around noon time, although the streets were already starting to get busy. I continued west on College Street to the beautiful High Park residential neighbourhood between Roncesvalles and Keele Street, and then headed into Toronto's largest urban park - High Park. I visited the Jamie Bell Adventure Playground, took inventory of the animals in the High Park Zoo (e.g. Yaks, Western Highland Cattle, peacocks, emus, lamas, and a whole family of Bisons including two young Bison offspring) and then headed to the central plateau of High Park that features beautiful views over the Maple Leaf next to Grenadier Pond and offers culinary treats to the visitors at the Grenadier Restaurant.

Overhead I could already hear the supersonic boom of the jet fighters that were doing mid-air acrobatics as part of the Canadian International Air Show, an annual Labour Day event. To see the planes I cycled down to Toronto's waterfront and relaxed for a while in the sand at Sunnyside Beach, watching a parade of airplanes from different eras perform all sorts of aerobatics. I then continued further east towards Ontario Place where tens of thousands of people had set up camp to watch the Air Show. The Canadian National Exhibition was in full swing as well. I made may way east, and on my way towards Harbourfront I stopped at the historic Tiptop Tailors Building, a former garment factory turned recently into a loft condominium conversion - an Art Deco jewel with beautiful ornamentation. Further east, at the foot of Bathhurst Street, next to the abandoned Canada Malting Plant, I stumbled across Ireland Park, a memorial to 38,000 Irish immigrants who fled Ireland during the Potato Famine of 1847 to escape extreme conditions of hunger and settle in a new continent. The scultpures in this park provide a gripping depiction of these emigrants' experiences. Figures such as the Orphan Boy and The Apprehensive Man illustrate the horrors of this period. The park itself is a symbol of Canadian-Irish collaboration. My last stop on my nearly 50 km cycling tour was the Toronto Music Garden, a beautiful stretch of greenery in the concrete jungle of Harbourfront that offers a welcome respite from the city's condo towers. I safely made it home after a nice ride through Toronto's Eastern Beaches.

I am actually a travel writer who loves to explore international destinations as well as my chosen home town of Toronto. On Youtube you will find hundreds of video clips from a wide variety of destinations. Feel free to check out some of my 700+ articles and interviews on http//www.travelandtransitions.com. My personal travel stories are located at http://www.travelandtransitions.com/stories_photos.htm and my Austrian travel articles will be published in the next few weeks.

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Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Toronto
• Ontario
• Canada
• air
• show
• festival
• tour
• bike

[yamahonkawazuki]

will keep this on my things to do list for my canada excursion/holiday

[cOmOnLoOn]

This is outrageous. All this time I've lived in Toronto, I just find out now.

[torktt]

very interesting, i heard thet are gfoing to take this down and buid the museum of toronto here! very well done... its a eyesore