Walking Tour and more exploring

I'm very tired both mentally and physically. I still didn't sleep that well last night despite everything I did yesterday and my legs were sore this morning from all the walking and standing. When I did get my brain in gear I opted to walk to Union Station for my free walking tour. I was in no rush to get there and although it was quite a way I figured stretching my legs may do them some good. There's so much construction going on around the station that I did have difficulty finding the guide but just made it by the 11am start time.

The tour was quite informative although the guide certainly liked to walk fast. It mainly took in the Financial District and was focused a lot on the buildings and architecture. It also took the group into the PATH (underground shopping network) which is huge and like a maze. We finished by City Hall just before 1pm and by then the weather had changed from grey skies to bright sunshine. I went back to the Brookfield Place which we'd visited on the tour to check out the World Press Photo exhibition which was very neat although very busy mainly with school children on a field trip. From there I walked east to St Lawrence Market and around Old Town. Again I recognised much of it from my previous visit. I made my way back to the centre of the city past City Hall and along Queens Street as I wanted to revisit a shop I went in on Wednesday. I brought myself a cool t-shirt there so that's another souvenir from this trip. 

I made my way back to the hostel. It was only 4pm but I was flagging. My legs didn't want to walk and my head didn't want to think. I had some coffee, made myself some popcorn and work out what to do next. When I went out again it had started to rain. I walked north and took a look around the Bata Shoe Museum. It isn't somewhere I would normally have visited but it was Pay-what-you-can from 5pm to 8pm so was an inexpensive visit. It was actually pretty interesting and I did learn some things about footwear from around the world and they did have an interesting, if somewhat eclectic selection of shoes belonging to notable people including Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill and Roger Federer.

When I left the museum it was raining more heavily and it got worse as I got closer to the hostel to the point where I was absolutely soaked through. Most of my clothes are nearly dry but I'm unsure whether my trainers will dry fully by the time they need to be packed. I cooked and ate at the hostel and spent the best part of the evening chatting with a couple of guys from Washington DC. 

At one stage today I had wanted to go out tonight but I'm just too knackered so it seems sensible to stay in and get properly rested for tomorrow, my final day in Canada. My flight to the UK isn't until late at night so I'll have plenty of time to see more around the city.

 

Old City Hall

Bank Vault, The Dominion Bank

City Hall